INDIA. 

AND 

INDIA MISSIONS. 



INDIA, AND INDIA MISSIONS: 



INCLUDING 

SKETCHES OF THE GIGANTIC SYSTEM 

OF 

HINDUISM, 

BOTH IN THEORY AND PRACTICE ; 

ALSO 

NOTICES OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL AGENCIES EMPLOYED IN CONDUCTING 
THE PROCESS OF INDIAN EVANGELIZATION, & c . &c. 



BY THE 

KEV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D. D., 

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND MISSION, CALCUTTA. 



EDINBURGH : 

JOHN JOHNSTONE, HUNTER SQUARE, 

SUCCESSOR TO WAUGH AND INNES J 
WHITTAKER & CO., AND NISBET & CO., LONDON. 

MDCCCXXXIX. 




1 e\ K\ ^$z> 



Edinburgh : Printed by J. Johnstone, 104, High Street. 



TO 



THE REV. ALEXANDER BRUNTON, D.D., Convener. 
THE REV. ROBERT GORDON, D.D., Secretary. 
THE REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., & LL.D. 
THE REV. DAVID RITCHIE, D. D. 
THE REV. WILLIAM MUIR, D. D. 
THE REV. JAMES GRANT. 

THE REV. JOHN PAUL. 
THE REV. JOHN HUNTER. 
THE REV. JOHN BRUCE. 
MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 
FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS i 
UNDER WHOSE WISE, PATERNAL, AND PRAYERFUL COUNSELS, 
THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE OF THE CHURCH 
HAS HITHERTO BEEN CONDUCTED 
WITH SUCH UNBROKEN HARMONY OF DESIGN, AND 
SUCH MULTIPLIED TOKENS AND PLEDGES OF THE DIVINE APPROBATION, 

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, 

AS A HUMBLE TRIBUTE OF GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT, 

BY 



THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



The appearance of the following volume in its present form, 
demands a few preliminary explanations. 

During the last four years, whenever health permitted, 
the Author has been in the habit of addressing mixed audi- 
ences in England and Scotland, both from the pulpit and 
the platform, on the subject of Christian Missions. He has 
also largely enjoyed the inestimable privilege of advocating 
the same blessed cause before the Presbyteries, Synods, and 
General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland. Of the Ad- 
dresses delivered on different occasions, some have already 
been published by special request, and widely circulated. 
Of the greater part, no written record ever existed, beyond 
the reports of the public journals, and a few loose scattered 
headings or notanda, — intelligible to no one but the Author 
himself. 

When, in May last, it was judged that, in the good Pro- 
vidence of God, the state of his health might reasonably be 
expected to admit of his once more braving the fervours of 
a tropical clime, it came to be a question how he could most 
profitably dispose of his time and strength during the inter- 
val of a few months which must elapse previous to his final 
departure ; whether, for example, he ought to resume his 
wonted vocation of addressing public meetings in different 
parts of the country; or whether he ought to commit to writ- 
ing, with the view of publication, the substance of what he had 



vi 



so often endeavoured to enforce on the attention of his coun- 
trymen. The latter alternative was that which the friends of 
the missionary cause unanimously advised him to adopt : and 
when he states the simple fact that, with the exception of a 
few pages, he had, in the course of four months, not only to 
write out the entire volume, but at one and the same time 
submit to the drudgery of carrying it through the press, — 
and that too, amid numberless distracting interruptions, — he 
trusts that its manifold imperfections will be treated with 
that indulgence which the circumstances of the case require 
at the hands of the candid reader. The circumstance, that 
the materials of which the volume is composed, formed ori- 
ginally the substance of oral addresses, will sufficiently ac- 
count for the frequent transition from the didactic to the 
hortatory style of composition. 

The first chapter mainly consists of statements of historic fact, 
gleaned from Mill, Maurice, M'Pherson,and other authorities. 
These statements, when introduced isolatedly — as hitherto 
they have usually been — into the body of lengthened narra- 
tives and elaborate dissertations, are apt to be passed over 
by the reader without attracting any special observation, or 
suggesting any special inference. But when separated from 
the mass of general history, and represented in one continu- 
ous form, they seem to open up the most interesting and 
important views of the connection between India and the 
Western World ; of the reciprocal influences which these 
in times past have exercised, and are still likely to exercise, 
on each others destiny ; and of the solemn obligations under 
which the British Churches are laid, to fall in with the pal- 
pable designs of Providence, in reference to the evangeliza- 
tion of India and the East. 

The second chapter proposes to unfold the grand theory of 
Hinduism. In this department the Author has nothing new 
— nothing original — to add to the subject-matter. His sole 



vii 



purpose has been to furnish a reply to the question so often 
put to him, What is Hinduism i The existing materials for 
furnishing such a reply are more than abundant. Indeed, 
it is their very superabundance which constitutes the diffi- 
culty of generalizing and reducing them to a consecutive form, 
and within reasonable limits. They are to be found in works 
translated, in whole or in part, from the Sanskrit language ; 
such as the Institutes of Manu, the Bhagavad Gita, the 
Ramayan, &c. They are to be found in analyses, reviews, 
and dissertations scattered in profusion over the ponderous 
series of "Asiatic Researches the transactions of various 
Asiatic Societies at home and abroad ; and the miscellaneous 
papers inserted in Asiatic Journals and Registers. They are 
to be found in separate treatises on the history and litera- 
ture, the philosophy and mythology, of the Hindus. Now 
what seemed wanting was a brief connected summary of lead- 
ing principles ; — a summary which might open up to the 
inexperienced, or to such as have no time for ampler 
investigations, a brief but comprehensive glimpse of the 
stupendous system of Hinduism ;— ■» a summary which might 
tend to show how the varied parts of so incongruous and 
multifarious a scheme are made to hang together; — a sum- 
* mary which might enable readers ever afterwards to refer 
the apparently unconnected and boundless variety of prac- 
tical details to their proper bearing and position in the great 
chart of theoretic Brahmanism. Such a summary the Author 
has endeavoured, however imperfectly, to supply. In pre- 
paring it, he has freely availed himself of the writings of Sir 
W. Jones, Wilkins, Colebrooke, Vans Kennedy, and others ; 
who have expatiated at large over the wide domains of Ori- 
entalism. At the same time, in his choice and rejection of 
materials — in his exposition of the views and opinions which 
may be said to constitute Brahmanical orthodoxy — he has 
been guided solely by his own vivid recollection of oral dis- 



viii 



missions and mutual interrogatories, carried on for several 
years, in his familiar and habitual intercourse with the sons 
of Brahma on the banks of the Ganges. In fact, he had 
constantly before his mind's eye the image of a learned 
Brahman of the orthodox school ; and his endeavour has 
been to present such a statement on every division and sub- 
division of the complex theme, as experience has taught 
him to believe would be rendered by a skilful advocate and 
expounder of the Brahmanical creed, if required to act the 
part of Commentator and Interpreter. On this account, by 
seizing simply on those generic features which a sagacious 
Brahman would hold to be soundest and most genuine ; and 
by excluding all consideration of the endless variations, dis- 
cordances, and downright contradictions, which abound in 
the sacred repositories of his faith, the present summary 
may well be regarded as exhibiting the theory of Hinduism 
in its most favourable aspect. That theory, in its vastly 
complicated artificial form, is an heterogeneous compound, 
resulting from a strange combination of corruptions of pri- 
meval tradition and monstrous exaggerations of historic 
facts, conjectural physics and baseless metaphysics, phi- 
losophic speculations and dialectic subtilties, — the produc- 
tion of widely distant realms — the growth of successive 
ages ! How, or by what precise steps, all the parts of 
the immense system came to be what they now are, must 
ever remain an undeterminable problem. Still, the system 
itself bears internal evidence of the rise and progress of 
many of its parts ; and our knowledge of the authentic his- 
tory of man's primitive condition and subsequent fall, sup- 
plies a clew wherewith, inferentially and deductively, to 
track other parts in the windings of the labyrinth. Hence 
it was the Author's original design to prefix an introductory 
chapter under the designation of " The Natural History of 
Hinduism." But as he advanced, he found the discussion 



IX 



becoming involved in so intricate a maze, and threatening 
to expand into such unreasonable dimensions, that he was 
constrained wholly to abandon the design ; and to confine 
himself exclusively to an expository description of what Hin- 
duism actually is, in its last and most elaborate form. 

The third chapter is devoted to an account of some of the 
leading superstitions and idolatries of Eastern India. Here, 
too, the Author does not pretend to advance any thing novel. 
He is not aware of referring to any particulars, which, in 
some shape or other, have not been already adverted to by 
Buchanan, Heber, Peggs, Ward, and others, who have been 
eye-witnesses of the scenes they respectively describe. All 
that he has to state is, that having witnessed many of the 
same scenes as his predecessors, he has endeavoured, in his 
own way, to picture forth some of the more noticeable phe- 
nomena which offered themselves to his own ocular observa- 
tion. Having mentioned the name of Ward, the Author 
cannot but render his humble tribute of grateful acknow- 
ledgment to that great and good man, — as an observer and 
recorder of Hindu superstitions, manners, and customs. The 
more intimately he became acquainted with the state of 
things in Bengal, the more did he find reason to marvel at 
the exceeding variety, as well as minute accuracy of detail, 
which characterise the volumes of Ward. 

In the fourth chapter, there is a consideration of the ge- 
neral agency to be employed in evangelizing India. In the 
views there unfolded, the Author is not conscious of propos- 
ing any thing new, or merely experimental. Quite the con- 
trary. All he contends for is, that the lessons of past his- 
tory and experience should be carefully treasured up, and 
brought to bear upon the modern evangelistic enterprise. 
He may be wrong in some of his opinions and conclusions ; 
but if he has erred, he has erred unwittingly, and will re- 
joice to have the truth pointed out to him. He may possibly 
2 



X 



have offended some of the more zealous and devoted friends 
of the missionary cause ; but if he has given unnecessary 
offence, he has done so unwittingly, and will, on being con- 
vinced of this mistake, rejoice to tender any acknowledg- 
ment which charity may prompt, or justice may demand. 
To avoid, as far as possible, even the very appearance of 
offending, the different questions have been discussed wholly 
apart from any specific reference to the proceedings of par- 
ticular individuals or particular societies. Conscious in his 
own mind of desiring nought but to discover the most 
effectual method of promoting God's cause and glory in the 
world, he has striven to discuss principles and measures 
apart from personalities altogether. The question ought 
never to be, Whether, in proposing to alter or amend such 
a measure which may have been adopted by such an indi- 
vidual or such a society, we thereby intentionally or unin- 
tentionally appear to impeach the wisdom of the one or of 
the other ? No ; the real question ought ever to be, Whether, 
in proposing any alteration or amendment of previously 
sanctioned measures, the great end which all have in com- 
mon — the diffusion of the blessed Grospel, and the salvation 
of lost souls,— can be more successfully promoted thereby? 
If so, all who love the Lord Jesus and the souls of men bet- 
ter than the gratification of their own natural desires, or the 
following out of their own individual views or self-originated 
schemes, must unitedly rejoice in any suggestion, proceeding 
from whatever quarter, which may hold out the prospect of 
greater efficiency and success in subverting Satan's empire, — 
in hastening on the reign of grace now, and the kingdom of 
glory hereafter. Friendly remarks or corrections from the 
members of any denomination of Christians, addressed di- 
rectly to the Author, to the care of his Publishers, will be 
gratefully received and duly attended to. 

In the fifth chapter, miscellaneous objections to the mis- 



xi 

sionary enterprise are considered. Individuals in different 
classes of society, may reckon this objection or the other now 
obsolete; because to their own minds such objections may not 
have occurred ; or because such objections may not prevail 
in those circles in which they usually move. During several 
years past, it has been the Author s lot to have come in con- 
tact with individuals of every grade and profession in society, 
from the highest to the lowest. He therefore begs to assure 
the reader, that he has noticed no objection which he has not 
found influentially current among some one class or another. 
And as the work has been written for general perusal, he has 
deemed it his duty to meet and satisfy, as far as practicable, 
the peculiar demands of generic sections of the community. 
Those who still object to Indian Missions in particular, on 
mistaken grounds of State policy, he would refer to the 
learned, argumentative, and eloquent work of the Rev. W. 
M. Hetherington, on the " Fulness of Time, 1 '— in which, 
amongst other important matters, the proposition, that 
" true religion is not only the source and measure of national 
prosperity, but the very end of national existence," is estab- 
lished by a resistless train of historic fact and logical infer- 
ence. 

The sixth chapter can only be regarded as a fragment. 
The original intention of the Author was to enter at large 
into the history of the Church of Scotland's Foreign Missions 
from their rise to the present time. But the unexpected 
length to which the preceding chapters extended, left him 
no other alternative than to limit himself to the briefest 
period which could furnish an intelligible conception of the 
principles,"working, and design of these Missions. On this 
account he has confined his brief notices exclusively to the 
station first selected— Calcutta ; and in the educational de- 
partment, to the operations of the first twelvemonth there ; 
—merely glancing at the present and anticipated results. 



xii 



For a year and a- half the first Missionary had to stand 
alone. At the termination of that period he was joined by 
an able and respected colleague, — Rev. W. M'Kay ; — who, 
entering on the discharge of his office with promptitude 
and power, has since almost fallen a martyr in the cause. 
May the Lord in mercy spare his invaluable life ; and re- 
store him to his chosen field of usefulness in the mission- 
ary vineyard. The Rev. D. Ewart reached Calcutta to- 
wards the close of 1834 ; and has ever since been privileged 
to labour with unwearied zeal and untiring energy. The Rev. 
Messrs M 'Donald and Smith have subsequently gone forth 
in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace. Con- 
cerning Bombay, Puna, and Madras, where vigorous branches 
of the India Mission have within the last four years been 
established, the Author can scarcely regret that necessity 
has constrained him to be silent. The facts within his posses- 
sion could not have enabled him to do any thing like justice 
to the labours of all the talented and noble minded Mis- 
sionaries at these stations. Besides, though at each Presi- 
dency the general principles of the missionary system pur- 
sued be identical, there must necessarily be variations aris- 
ing from local peculiarities, which tend to modify these prin- 
ciples in their practical application. Of these variations it 
would be difficult for any one else besides the living agent to 
furnish an adequate statement. Who but Mr Anderson could 
fully elucidate the occasions, causes, and applicability of the 
energetic measures adopted by himself and his coadjutors at 
Madras 2 Who but Dr Wilson could sufficiently unfold and 
vindicate the Herculean labours of himself and his colleagues 
at Bombay \ It is fondly hoped that the day is not far dis- 
tant, when these honoured servants of the Lord will be em- 
powered to supply a connected narrative of their intensely 
interesting proceedings at the sister Presidencies. 

What would have formed a distinct chapter in the history 



xiii 



of the Calcutta Mission, is, for want of space, now thrown 
into an abridged form in the Appendix. The subject tends 
to present a large and influential portion of Hindu society 
in so novel an aspect, — tends also to present a sphere for 
the application of Missionary labour of so novel a character, 
— that the Author could not withhold the present fragment, 
however unworthy of the theme. Besides, it serves the 
purpose of proving, if any such proof were at all necessary, 
that, from the earliest period, the Christian education of the 
young, with a view to the noblest ulterior objects, formed 
practically as well as theoretically only a single department 
of the general scheme of missionary procedure. While the 
Missionaries of the Church of Scotland have been sent forth 
with a special commission to prosecute the only means within 
their reach, in the absence of miracles, towards rearing a 
superior race of native teachers and preachers of the everlast- 
ing Gospel ; they have been sent forth with an equally spe- 
cial commission to preach as they have opportunity, — to be 
instant in season and out of season, in communicating the 
blessed knowledge of salvation to all around them, of every 
class and of every grade, — and that too irrespectively of 
those conventional forms and modes of address, all those 
mechanical arrangements as to places of stated resort, which, 
in a Christian land, ages have served to consecrate. 

It was the Author's intention to subjoin references to au- 
thorities at the foot of the different pages. This, however, 
would have greatly increased the size of a volume already too 
large. Besides, the work having no pretensions whatever of a 
literary character, never was designed for the use of the learn- 
ed at all; but solely for the great mass of general readers, who 
are only very partially acquainted with the subjects treated 
of ; and who have neither inclination nor opportunity for con- 
sulting references, even if these were redundantly supplied. 
Moreover, many of the minor quotations are given wholly 



xiv 

from memory ; and though the name of the authority might 
be mentioned, the page or section of the book very frequently 
could not be furnished. 

It was also the Authors intention to add a large 
Appendix of Notes, — partly explanatory, and partly vin- 
dicatory. The bulk to which the volume has swoln, 
and this alone, has prevented the accomplishment of that 
part of the design. Without such Notes, he is conscious 
that many of his statements are peculiarly liable to misap- 
prehension. To illustrate what is meant : — At the bottom 
of page 57, it is asserted, that " no where can a single moral 
attribute, properly so called, be found ascribed to the one 
God — the Supreme Brahm of the Hindus." In a note, the 
reason of the qualification expressed by the words in italics, 
would be illustrated — the precise nature of those generalized 
" qualities 11 which Brahm is said to assume when he awakes 
from his slumber, would be defined. Again, in page 99, an 
account is given of the Hindu theory of the nature and origin 
of caste. In a note, the various modifications to which in 
practice that theory has been subjected, would be largely 
pointed out ; and thus, might numberless doubts, difficulties, 
and misapprehensions, be anticipated and obviated. In the 
unavoidable absence of such notes, therefore, the Author 
must throw himself on the indulgence of the candid reader ; 
as in the text itself it would be plainly impossible to intro- 
duce all those minute details which might act as so many 
fences and safeguards of the meaning. 

The train of remark in some of the following chapters 
having led the Author to refer almost exclusively to generic 
principles and modes of procedure in the history of modern 
missions ; and his own labours having been mainly conduct- 
ed within a sphere which, in the metropolis of British India, 
had not previously been occupied, — it did not fall in with the 
scope of his very brief sketches to bestow a more specific 



XV 



notice on the operations of his brethren and coadjutors of 
other Christian denominations. Of the American Mission in 
Ceylon, which possesses so many features in common with 
that of the Church of Scotland he, at the time to which his 
historic observations refer, knew nothing but the name. He 
cannot, however, refrain from once more doing what 
he has already repeatedly done in oral and written 
forms, — he cannot help giving expression to the delight 
which he has heretofore enjoyed, and the profit which 
he has heretofore reaped, in the society of his prede- 
cessors and contemporaries in the missionary field. With 
the agents of all the great English societies it was his 
happy lot to associate on terms of the most familiar and en- 
dearing intercourse. To the Adams and Lacroixs of the 
Independents, the Reichardts of the Church of England, 
the Yates and the Pearces of the junior Baptist mission, 
Calcutta, he has again and again been laid under the deepest 
obligation for their counsels and freely communicated ex- 
perience. And what shall he say as to the senior fraternity 
at Serampore now no more ? Often since his return to 
Britain has he been pained to hear these devoted men ac- 
cused of worldly extravagance, oriental pomp, princely 
grandeur, and sundry other foibles, errors, and inconsist- 
ences ! Knowing, from ocular evidence, that these and such 
like charges were, to say the least, most grossly exaggerated, 
he has ever felt it a special privilege to have had it in his power 
to vindicate the name and memory of these venerated labour- 
ers. What ! — men who, for thirty or forty years, braved the 
noxious influences of a tropical clime, — taught and preached 
the Grospel to thousands, and tens of thousands, — gave versions 
of the Bible in whole or in part, and more or less perfect, into 
the majority of the Indian dialects ! — men who, besides sup- 
porting their own family establishments, actually expended, 
for the promotion of Christianity in India, from their own 



xvi 



earnings, more than sixty thousand founds ! — Talk of flaws 
and imperfections in the multitudinous sayings and doings 
of such men ! — would it not be miraculous if none such 
could be detected I Owing to man's fallibility, errors in 
judgment may lead to the projection of inadequate measures ; 
owing to man's frailty, there may often be feebleness in the 
execution of good ones. But, in all Christendom, let any 
three men be pointed out, who have done more than Ward, 
Marshman, and Carey, to earn new trophies for the Re- 
deemer in the hitherto unconquered realms of Paganism, — 
and then, but not till then, would the Author consent to re- 
main silent when the first stone was thrown at the noble, 
the immortal, triumvirate of Serampore ! 

In conclusion, the Author cannot but publicly return his 
unfeigned thanks to his kind and revered friend, the Rev. Dr 
Brunton, — under whose hospitable roof he has during the 
last four months found a congenial home, — and for all 
whose counsels and valuable suggestions, when the present 
Work was passing through the press, he has been laid under 
obligations which can never be adequately repaid. 

Now, to Him, " who is the blessed, and only Potentate, 
the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only hath im- 
mortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach 
unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see ; — to Him be 
honour and power everlasting. Amen." 

BlLSTANE NEAE. EDINBURGH, 

25th October 1839. 



s % Should any profits arise from the sale of this Publication^ 
they are to be devoted exclusively to purposes promotive of the 
interests of the India Mission. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INDIA — ITS PARAMOUNT INFLUENCE AND IMPORTANCE A PRECIOUS 

FIELD FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL — OUR RESPONSI- 
BILITIES. 

Page. 

The paramount influence of India on the Western Nations from the 

earliest times, * 

Proofs and Illustrations— Arabia — Palmyra— Tyre— Alexandria- 
Bagdad — Ghizni, 2 

The Crusades open up Eastern Asia to Western Europe, .... 6 

The Eise of Venice and Genoa, 8 

Attempts to discover a New Passage to India, 9 

Vasco de Gama doubles the Cape, ' 1° 

Effect of this discovery — Lisbon — Amsterdam, 11 

Splendid series of English voyages, with the view of reaching India, II 

The final supremacy of Britain, 16 

Three distinct epochs of peculiar interest in behalf of India, — . . 16 

The era of romantic imaginative interest, 16 

The era of romantic literary interest, 23 

The era of vivid religious interest, 25 

Designs of Providence in subjecting India to Britain, 26 

Glance at the remarkable series of events which have thrown all 

India open as a field for Missionary enterprise, 26 

Analogy between the condition of the Roman Empire at the com- 
mencement of the Christian era, and the present position of 

India, 31 

Argument and appeal founded on this, in behalf of the spread of the 

Gospel • 34 



xviii 



CHAPTER II. 

THE THEORY OF HINDUISM ESSENTIALLY A STUPENDOUS SYSTEM OF 

PANTHEISM ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL MODES IN 

WHICH THE THEORY IS EXEMPLIFIED IN PRACTICE. 

Page. 

The necessity of knowing the real condition of a people, in order to 

the adoption of effectual measures for their amelioration, . . 38 

This illustrated in the case of India, . 39 

Religion the master-principle in moulding the character, opinions, 

and practices of the people, 40 

Their religion contained in writings believed to be divine, .... 42 

These writings locked up in the Sanskrit language, 44 

Enumeration of them, 45 

Attempt to unfold the orthodox theory of the Brahmanical faith, . 49 
Foundation of the system in the belief of one great universal Spirit, 50 

Description of the nature and character of this Spirit, 51 

Shown to be an infinite nothing, yet substantially all things, ... 52 
Reflections on the fact that he is without any moral attributes, . . 57 
The manifestation of the universe, at a time when nought existed but 

the Supreme Spirit, 64 

The whole is a pantheism, " 65 

Four distinct views of this subject entertained in the orthodox schools, 66 

Spiritual Pantheism, 67 

Psycho-ideal Pantheism, 69 

Psycho-material Pantheism, 75 

Reflections on this confounding of the creature with the Creator, . 82 

Psycho-mat erial-mythologic Pantheism, 86 

The geographical and astronomical construction of the universe, 

educed from the substance of the Siipreme Spirit, 88 

The peopling of all worlds with animated beings, 95 

The immense epochs of the duration of the universe, with its succes- 
sive destructions and renovations, 101 

Glance at the mode in which the grand theory of Hinduism is re- 
duced to practice, 120 

Various exemplifications, 121 

Transmigration of souls a vital and operative doctrine, .... 123 

A graduated scale of rewards and punishments, 125 

The wicked sent to one or other of innumerable hells, 125 

They reappear on earth in mineral, vegetable, or brutal forms, . . 125 
Obedience and acts of merit recompensed by admission into one or 
other of the heavens of the gods — The highest reward is absorp- „ 
tion or refusion into the Divine Essence, . 128 



xix 



Page. 

Statement of the boundless range of observances required by the se- 



parate castes, — 132 

The rites of the Brahmans, 133 

The observances of the multitudes, 150 

The austerities of the devotees, 164 

Summary of the preceding details of the grand theory of Hinduism, 179 
A series of statements to show how the facts and doctrines of Chris- 
tianity beautifully contrast with those of Hinduism, .... 181 
Appeal to Christians 191 



CHAPTER III. 

PRACTICAL SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE LEADING SUPERSTITIONS AND 
IDOLATRIES OF EASTERN INDIA. 

Page. 



Classical enthusiasm of Sir W. Jones, when approaching the shores 

of India, 196 

Violent disturbance of such an emotion in the mind of a Christian, 
on the sudden appearance of one of the most celebrated idol 

temples, 197 

Juggernath, the horrors and extent of his worship, 197 

Sagor Island, and its hundreds of thousands of annual pilgrims, . 200 
The zeal of the heathen contrasted with the indifference of professing 

Christians, 202 

Physical aspect of the banks of the Ganges compared with the moral 

aspect of the natives, 204 

Human bodies floating on the surface of the stream, 206 

Causes of so painful a spectacle, 207 

Murders and suicides in the name of humanity and religion, . . . 209 

Contrast of the spirit of the Gospel, 215 

The worshippers of Shiva, their clay symbols and morning orisons, . 216 
Besides the daily ceremonies, great annual festivals celebrated in ho- 
nour of the principal Divinities, 219 

Two selected as examples, 219 

The Goddess Durga, her character and exploits, 219 

Detailed account of her annual festival, with its multitude of tempor- 
ary images, ceremonies, free-will offerings, bloody sacrifices, and 

grotesque processions, 220 

An appeal to British merchants on the time and industry lost by these 

festivals, 226 

Liberality of heathens contrasted with the scanty contributions of 

professing Christians, 230 

Reflections on the final triumphs of the Gospel over the superstitions 

and idolatries of the Ganges, . . . . . 240 



XX 



Page, 

The Goddess Kali, her sanguinary character and worship, . . # . 240 

The Patroness of thieves and murderers, 242 

The Charak Pujah, or swinging festival, 244 

Various self-inflicted tortures described, 245 

Account of the great day of the festival, when multitudes resort to 
the celebrated temple of Kali-ghat, in the neighbourhood of Cal- 
cutta, 250 

Sketch of the appearance of the groups of devotees, of the temple 

and monster-block of the idol, 251 

Cruel practices of the worshippers, 254 

Their frantic revelries contrasted with the solemnities of a Christian 

Sabbath in Great Britain, 256 

Call upon Christians to come forth to " the help of the Lord against 

the mighty." 258 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GOSPEL THE ONLY EFFECTUAL INSTRUMENT IN REGENERATING 

INDIA GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF THE VARIOUS AGENCIES TO BE 

EMPLOYED LN ITS PROPAGATION, AND OF SPECIAL OBJECTIONS. 

Page. 

Various expedients proposed for remedying the evils under which India 



has, for ages, groaned, — 260 

The Scheme of Political Reform, 261 

The Scheme of Economic Reform, 262 

The Scheme of Secular Education Reform, 264 

The Scheme of Temporizing Religious Reform, .... 270 

All these nugatory, 271 

The Gospel, the only effectual instrument of genuine Reformation, 272 

Illustration of this, . 272 

The practical question proposed, How, or by what means is the Gos- 
pel to be most successfully propagated ? 281 

Quotation from the Author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, . 281 

The three generic measures, — 285 

1 . Christian Education of the Young. 

2. Preaching to the Adults. 

3. The circulation of the Bible. 

These not antagonists, but mutual friends and allies, 285 



In reference to Education, the practical question considered, Whe- 
ther is it better at the outset, to pursue the direct method of 
attempting at once to impart a general elementary knowledge to 
the many^ or the indirect method of attempting to reach the 
many through the instrumentality of the instructed fetal . . . 290 



xxi 

Page. 

In reference to Preaching, the great practical question considered, 

Who ought to be the preachers ? 304 

General reasons adduced, to prove that they ought to be natives, . ' 308 
The inadequate supply of existing missionary stations, .... 310 
Prodigious disproportion between the number of labourers and the 

extent of the field, 311 

Occasional itineracy a very inefficient means of evangelization, . . 313 

Different causes of this pointed out, 314 

Superiority of the localizing system, 315 

Other arguments, besides the numerical one, in favour of an extensive 

native agency, - 319 

The diminution of expense, 326 

The necessity of the mode of life being such as to bring a holy exam- 

, pie fully to bear upon the people, 326 

The necessity of a familiar acquaintance with the tones and idiom of 

speech ; the manners, habits, and prevalent modes of thinking, 327 

Natives, the real reformers of their own country, 329 

How qualified natives are to be raised, 331 

Objections to Educational Institutions in connection with the mission- 
ary enterprise fully considered, — 338 

That missionaries are thereby converted into Professors in- 
stead of Preachers, 338 

That the scheme is different from that which was blessed 

with a Pentecostal effusion, 343 

That it is contrary to Apostolic example, 353 

Translation and Circulation of the Bible, 375 

Question considered as to the amount of good to be expected from 
the written word in the absence of the living voice to direct at- 
tention towards it, 376 

To raise up a native agency ought to be not a secondary, but a pri- 
mary object, in conducting the missionary enterprise, . . . 392 
Happy day for India, when through the instrumentality of the edu- 
cational and other means employed, qualified natives shall be- 
come the Christian teachers, preachers, and translators to their 

countrymen ! 398 

Corroborations from the work of the Rev. Howard Malcom, just pub- 
lished 399 

CHAPTER Y. 

MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 
f CONSIDERED. 



Page, 

The objection of the careless scoffer, who summarily denounces the 

whole as novel and visionary, the growth of modern fanaticism, 405 



xxii 



Page. 

The objection of the tcorldly politician, who, with a special reference 
to India, dreads the propagation of Christianity as dangerous to 

the stability of the Anglo-Indian empire, 416 

The objection of unreflecting economists, who allege that, as so many 
return with immense fortunes from India, we should restrict our 
pecuniary demands to the people of that wealthy region, . . 433 

The objections of the latitudinarian Uberalist, — 436 

That it is an insult to obtrude our religion on the upholders 

of another faith, 437 

That to teach our religion to their children is an invasion of 

the natural rights of parents, 437 

And that it is cruel to disturb the peace of families by at- 
tempts to secure their conversion, . 440 

The objection of the luxuriously wealthy, who evade every petition 

by replying that they have little or nothing to spare, . . . 443 
The objection of the humble poor, who are fearful lest their mite 

should be too insignificant to prove of any avail, 449 

The objection of the speculative theorist, who waives all active sup- 
port on the ground of hypothetical reasonings and anticipations, 451 
The objection of the merely nominal, or sincere but weak-minded Christian 
that there is enough of heathenism at home, without troubling 

ourselves with foreign lands, 459 

Concluding appeal 470 



CHAPTER VI. 

an account of the rise and early progress of the church of 
Scotland's india mission. 

Page. 

The Church of Christ ceases to flourish when it ceases to be mission- 



Towards the close of last century, the Protestant Churches began to 

awaken from their long slumber, 475 

The Church of Scotland, which for years had maintained the attitude 
of spectator, at length resolves, in 1824, in its national corporate 

capacity, to embark on a missionary enterprise, 476 

Committee appointed by the General Assembly to conduct it, . . 478 
Rudimental conception of an education and preaching mission to 
India as originally announced and approve^ of by the General 

Assembly, 479 

Dr Inglis the undisputed author of it, 481 

Evidence of this assertion, 482 



Notices of preparatory measures during the years 1825, 6, 7, 8, . . 485 



xxiii 



Page. 



In 18*29 the first Missionary nominated, 489 

His disastrous voyage to India, and reception there, 492 

Dr Bryce's disinterested services, 496 

Difficulties in ascertaining the existing state of things, with a view to 

missionary operation, 497 

Reasons for preferring Calcutta to a rural station, 501 

The primary design to establish a central Institution for higher edu- 
cation, 506 

Reasons for abandoning this design at the outset, 507 

Resolutions to institute preparatory schools, 508 

Elementary schools in the Bengali or vernacular dialect totally in- 
efficient for the purposes of a higher Institution, 512 

Choice to be made between Sanskrit and English as the medium of 

superior instruction, 517 

English pronounced the grand instrument for conveying the entire 
range of European knowledge, — literary, scientific, and theolo- 
gical, — to the select few who, in various ways, are to influence 

the minds of their countrymen, 518 

Account of the opening of the first English mission-seminary at Cal- 
cutta, with a specific view to an enlarged European Education, . 525 

Various incidents connected therewith, 526 

Introduction of the intellectual or mental developement system of 

tuition, 532 

The Bible an essential part of the scheme of instruction, .... 534 
Notices of the early impression produced by its perusal, .... 540 
Illustration of the effect of general knowledge in demolishing the 

sacred authority of the Shastras, 556 

Various reflections arising out of this subject, 559 

Vicissitudes of the first twelvemonth, 574 

First public examination of the Institiition, 580 

The happy effect of that examination on the European and native 

community, 584 

Some of the present and anticipated results of the Educational part 

of the system pointed out, 585 

Its general bearing on the evangelization of India, . ... . . . 600 



APPENDIX. 

Brief sketch of the circumstances which led to the delivery of the first 
series of Lectures on the Evidences and Doctrines of Natural 
and Revealed Religion ever addressed to an Audience of edu- 
cated Hindus in Eastern India, — with notices of some of the 
results, as more especially manifested in the ultimate conversion 
of a few to the faith of Jesus 607 



CHAPTER I. 



THE PARAMOUNT INFLUENCE WHICH INDIA HAS SUCCESSIVELY EX- 
ERTED ON THE PROSPERITY OF THE LEADING CITIES AND NATIONS 

OF THE WEST THE REMARKABLE SERIES OF PROVIDENTIAL 

EVENTS BY WHICH INDIA HAS BEEN OPENED UP AS THE LARGEST 
AND MOST PROMISING FIELD FOR CHRISTIAN MISSIONS NOW IN THE 

WORLD AND THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION THAT DEVOLVES ON 

BRITISH CHRISTIANS IN PARTICULAR, TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF 
THE PRECIOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR SPREADING THE KNOWLEDGE OF 
THE GOSPEL AMONG THE MILLIONS OF FELLOW -SUBJECTS IN THAT 
BENIGHTED LAND. 

Announcement of the grand historic fact or law of the para- 
mount influence of India on the Western Nations — Proofs and il- 
lustrations of this fact — The Peninsula of Arabia — Palmyra — 
Tyre — Alexandria — Bagdad — Ghizni — The Crusades open up 
Eastern Asia to Western Europe — Venice — Attempts to discover 
a new passage to India — Henry of Portugal — Columbus — Vasco 
de Gama doubles the Cape — Effect of this discovery — Lisbon — 
Amsterdam — Splendid series of English voyages, with the view of 
reaching India — The final supremacy of Britain — Three distinct 
eras or epochs of peculiar interest in behalf of India — The era of 
romantic imaginative interest — The era of romantic literary in- 
terest — The era of vivid religious interest — Designs of Providence 
in subjecting India to Britain — Glance at the remarkable series 
of events which have thrown all India open as a field for Missionary 
enterprise — Analogy between the condition of the Roman empire 
at the commencement of the Christian era, and the present position 
of India — Argument and appeal founded on this, in behalf of the 
spread of the Gospel. 

For the last three thousand years has India, unexhausted 
and inexhaustible, been pouring an uninterrupted stream 
of opulence upon the W estern World. 

A 



2 



During that long period, measuring half the duration of 
the globe, the intermediate points of communication be- 
tween the East and the West, have changed with the rise 
and fall of mighty cities and empires. Connected, however, 
with all such changes, there is one fact that stands out in 
singular prominence, challenging the attention of the pa- 
triot, the statesman, and the Christian philanthropist. It 
is a fact, too, so uniform and characteristic, that it may 
well be entitled to rank as an historic law. The fact is 
this : — that whatever city or nation has, in the lapse of 
past ages, held in its hands the keys of Indian commerce 
and Indian influence, that city or nation has, for the time 
being, stood forth in the van of the civilized world as the 
richest and most flourishing. Indeed, the temporary mono- 
poly of Indian trade has rescued even petty states from 
obscurity ; and raised them to a height of greatness, and 
wealth, and power, vastly incommensurate with their na- 
tural resources. Some of the most famous cities of anti- 
quity it may be said to have literally created. With the 
first possession of it, they suddenly sprang to their meridian 
of glory ; and with its departure, they as rapidly sunk into 
the dark night of oblivion. 

The southern peninsula of Arabia, projecting as it does 
like an isthmus between the East and the West, seems, from 
the earliest times, to have enjoyed, on a great scale, the full 
benefit of Indian commerce. And is it not matter of his- 
toric record, that the most important advantages were 
thereby conferred on the inhabitants \ Did it not stimulate 
their industry at home, — multiplying the necessaries, en- 
hancing the comforts, and superadding the most coveted 
luxuries of life ? Engaging the services of art as the ally of 
nature, did it not lead to such improvements of an origin- 
ally happy soil, as doubly to justify the poetic designation 
of " Araby the blest ? " Did it not arouse the great mass 
of the people to correspondent activities abroad — earning for 
them a distinguished reputation for nautical enterprise, and 
enabling them to plant and maintain flourishing colonies on 
the most distant African shores ? 



Or, casting our eyes northward, over the sandy skirts of 
ancient Syria, do we not find the barren waste doing hom- 
age to the prolific bounty of the East ? Do we not find 
the mere transit depot of Indian produce suddenly rise 
into surpassing grandeur? Indian commerce found Pal- 
myra composed, as it were, of brick, — but left it more pre- 
cious than marble. And, to this day, those ruins that 
fill the traveller with amazement, if animated and vocal, 
would cease not to proclaim, — Behold, these are but the 
time-worn fragments of that wealth and magnificence which 
dropped in the desert from the wings of Orient riches, on 
their passage to the West ! 

Or, if we look westward, along the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, do we not find the various tribes of Phenicia, though 
only the secondary conveyers of the merchandise of the East, 
thereby raised into temporary prosperity and renown ? And 
with the disappearance of that aggrandizing traffic, do we not 
find all their glory vanish like a dream ? What enabled 
Tyre, single-handed and unaided, to resist so successfully, 
and so long, the mightiest assaults of the Macedonian con- 
queror? Chiefly the resources which it had accumulated 
from its monopoly of the Indian trade. This could not 
escape the eagle-eye of Alexander. Accordingly, on having 
achieved the conquest of Egypt, he at once resolved, 
through that country, to open a direct communication 
with India ; and replace Tyre by a nobler emporium for 
Eastern trade. Hence the origin and design of that 
celebrated city, which still retains the name of its royal 
founder. And when the conqueror, in his swift career, 
reached the Indus with its tributaries, and had concluded, 
in those days of geographical ignorance, that these were 
none other than the feeding streams of the Nile, his 
biographer, Arrian, expressly assures us, that the vast fleet 
placed under the command of Nearchus, " was equipped for 
the specific purpose of opening the direct intercourse be- 
tween India and Alexandria." So bent was the hero on 
this favourite project, and such importance did he attach 
to its success, that when, after weeks of intense anxiety, he 



i 



was at length suddenly relieved from all fear as to the 
safety of his fleet, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, — 
" By the Lybian Amnion and the Grecian Jove, I swear 
to thee, that I am made happier by this intelligence than 
in being conqueror of Asia ; for I should have considered the 
loss of my fleet, and the failure of the enterprise it has under- 
taken, as almost outweighing, in my mind, all the glory I have 
acquired." The execution of his magnificent design he lived not 
to witness. But under his immediate successors, Alexandria 
soon became the channel of communication between Europe 
and Eastern Asia. And recent though it was, and but of 
yesterday, compared with the "hundred-gated Thebes," 
and other ancient cities, direct trade with India and the 
East speedily raised it into such pre-eminence, that it 
appeared to eclipse all else besides, even in a land so pro- 
digal of architectural wonders. Yea, when it ceased to 
exercise sovereign power, and became politically dependent 
on all-conquering Rome, it still maintained its proud posi- 
tion as the commercial capital of the Empire ; — while, in 
opulence, splendour, and population, it bade fair to rival, 
if not outrival, the Eternal City itself. 

After the proud mistress of the world sunk into decrepi- 
tude and inanition, Arabia once more sprung up into more 
than its original greatness. Its tribes, headed by a warrior- 
prophet, and inflamed with fanatical fury, speedily over- 
ran many of the fairest provinces of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa, — gathering up the spoils and fragments of the 
shattered Empire of the Cesars, — planting the Mahamma- 
dan crescent in distant realms, which the Roman eagle 
never knew. With the extension of their conquests were 
re-developed those mercantile energies which distinguished 
their forefathers. On almost every shore from the Straits 
of Gibraltar to the extremity of the ultra-Gangetic Peninsula 
were strongholds established, as posts for military aggres- 
sion, or depots for commercial enterprise. 

The Moslem conquerors having usurped the dominion of 
the Eastern and Western seas, and for several centuries 
maintained an uncontrolled supremacy over them, the trade 



5 



of India, in all its boundless variety, became exclusively theirs. 
Bagdad, their capital, started up at once, the Rome and the 
Alexandria and the Athens of the East. Resistless in arms, 
unrivalled in commerce, matchless in learning, it absorbed, 
while it flourished, all power, all wealth, all wisdom. And 
when its day began to decline, its commerce with India 
and the East fringed the lengthening shadows of evening 
with a halo of glory. That commerce had caused the sun 
of its prosperity to shine with sevenfold greater splendour ; 
and when it would have suddenly sunk in darkness, its 
setting was protracted into a long and glowing twilight. 
Year after year, did the balmy plains and aromatic groves 
and pearly shores of India pour in their redundant stores, 
to replenish the exhausted treasury of the Caliphate. 
Year after year, did the Ganges, as it were, roll in another 
and another wave to retard the final drying up of the 
Euphrates. 

When, at length, the Mahammadan Empire was broken 
up into divers independent principalities, Indian commerce, 
instead of flowing in one all-comprehending channel, came 
to be distributed among several lesser ones, — each deriving 
therefrom the most important advantages. The vigorous 
revival of the old branch of the trade by the Red Sea re- 
novated the decaying city of Alexandria. The new branch, 
stretching along the great desert of Syria, restored to some- 
thing like primitive grandeur, some of its dilapidated cities. 
The northern branch, by the Caspian and Black Sea, en- 
riched every country along the route ; and added fresh 
lustre to the imperial city of Constantine. 

Here we cannot but pause to notice in passing, that if 
the regular commerce of India proved so uniformly advan- 
tageous to the nation that succeeded in engrossing it, the 
occasional plunder of that fertile region proved not less so 
to a succession of fierce and rapacious invaders. To single 
one instance out of many that crowd into India's eventful 
history, let us fix our eyes on Ghizni, a city of Afghanis- 
tan. Situate on the crest of a bleak mountain range, 
the rigour of its climate, and the sterility of its soil, had 



6 



passed into a proverb. About the end of the tenth cen- 
tury it was still little more than " an encampment of migra- 
tory shepherds;' But Fame brought to Mahmoud, its 
ambitious chieftain, the most extravagant reports of the 
riches of India. In his fervent imagination it presented 
itself as a land glittering all over with gems and gold. 
In twelve successive expeditions he levelled its proudest 
cities, and plundered its most venerated shrines, — return- 
ing in triumph to his mountain fastness, laden with spoils 
— spoils of pillage and sacrilege — spoils, vast beyond all 
calculation — spoils, the accumulated treasures of ages ! 
What was the effect on Ghizni ? Its shepherd citizens in- 
stantly became nobles ; its leading warriors, princes. Its 
miserable hamlets were turned into palaces ; its humble 
oratories into stately temples ; — and towering above them 
all, in majesty and grandeur, the marble edifice, so richly 
bedecked with the jewels and gold of India, that throughout 
all the East it was long renowned as " The Celestial Bride." 
Altogether, though perched aloft amid almost perpetual 
frosts and barrenness, the naked fastness of Ghizni soon 
outstripped in pomp and magnificence every other city of 
Asia. The spoils of India at once transported to it the 
arts and letters — the power and glory — of the Caliphate. 
The spoils of India converted it into the seat of the most 
brilliant court, and most powerful empire then in the world. 
It seemed like the ancient Canouge, and Matura, and Tan- 
asser, and Samnat of the Indian heroic ages, blazing in con- 
centrated beauty and splendour, amid the snows of the In- 
dian Caucasus. 

Hitherto the nations of Western Europe seem to have 
had no share in the direct management of Indian com- 
merce ; and little or no participation in any of its fruits. 
Too rude to be sensible of the wants so heavily felt in a 
refined society, they were too ignorant to comprehend the 
advantages of an international exchange of the products of 
different climes. 



7 



From this torpor they were at length awakened by the 
trumpet peal of fanaticism. In the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries, the crusading armies, bent on the famous pro- 
ject of recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of 
the Infidel hosts, scoured the eastern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. These representatives of trans-Alpine barbarism 
were thus brought into immediate contact with the com- 
parative civilization of the Saracenic empire. And while 
the balmy climate of Asia mellowed their rough and hardy 
temperament, they insensibly acquired a taste for luxuries 
and enjoyments previously unknown. The jewels, the silks, 
and the spiceries of India and the East, soon became objects 
of the most intense attraction. Accordingly, when driven 
from their short-lived conquests, they returned in scattered 
and straggling bands, to their native land, they carried along 
with them their newly acquired tastes, as well as the means 
of partial gratification. The exhibition, on their return, of 
sundry articles of Indian and other Oriental produce, at once 
aroused the curiosity and inflamed the covetous desires of 
their fellow-countrymen at home. But, how could foreign 
commodities be obtained without having something equiva- 
lent to barter in exchange ? To create such an exchangeable 
equivalent, labour must be expended beyond what is required 
merely to secure the bare necessaries of life. To this addition- 
al labour, the people of the West were now greatly stimu- 
lated. The growing ambition to possess some share of the 
envied riches and luxuries of the East, infused the spirit 
of improvement into the varied operations of agriculture 
and manufactures. And thus, to use the words of a modern 
historian, " nations hitherto sunk in listless indolence, or 
only roused from it when hunger urged them to the chase, 
or their chiefs led them to the battle, acquired industry, 
the only efficient and legitimate source of all other acquisi- 
tions, and of national prosperity 

Singular subject for reflection ! That distant India, un- 
der the overruling providence of God, should thus have 
proved one of the most direct and leading instruments in 
communicating the first decided impulse to modern civiliza- 



8 



tion in Western Europe ! But stranger still ! — that distant 
India should ever since have continued to prove one of the 
most potent causes in accelerating the march of Western 
civilization, till that civilization immensely outstripped its 
own ! — and thus helped in raising Europe to undisputed pre- 
eminence over all other quarters of the globe ! 

That this is no exaggeration, may be made to appear 
from the briefest summary of the progress of events. 

The steady advancement of general society in the West 
created an extending demand for the varied products of the 
East. But such increasing demand could no longer be 
supplied by the precarious importations of disabled warriors, 
or wandering pilgrims from the Holy Land. There must 
now be some regular European channel of communication 
with the East. And where could such channel, with a view 
to the best local and maritime advantages, be more appro- 
priately opened than in the central peninsula of Italy? 
Hence the rise of Genoa, Venice, and other cities which 
strove for the trident that might command an exclusive 
monopoly of Eastern trade. At length Venice out-peered 
all her rivals. And was not the historic law, expressive of 
the aggrandising influence of Indian commerce, true to it- 
self ? How was it that Venice, poor and mean, feeble and 
obscure, came to sit in state, " Throned on her hundred isles, 
a ruler of the waters and their powers \ " How came she, 
with her proud tiara of proud battlements, to have so many 
a subject land looking to her " winged lion's marble piles ? 71 
How came she to be robed in purple, and so luxuriously 
magnificent, that of 

" Her feast 

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased ? "J 

It was, to draw still from the same poetic but unhappy 
genius, — it was, because the exhaustless East had 

" Pour'd into her lap all gems in sparkling showers." 

When the monopoly of Indian and other Eastern commerce 
had made Venice thus to start, as by the wand of enchant- 



9 



ment, in beauty and brightness, from the bosom of the Ad- 
riatic, — challenging the admiration of Europe, — how could 
her unbounded prosperity fail to excite general envy too ? 
Naturally and necessarily, were other communities incited to 
sue for some share in her all-enriching trade. But how could 
this be secured ? Hitherto, the great routes for the trans- 
ference of Indian produce lay along the Red Sea, the Eu- 
phrates, or the Caspian. The principal intermediate marts 
were Alexandria, St Jean de Acre, or Constantinople. Over 
these emporia Venice had acquired an almost unlimited 
command. What, then, was to be done ? Why, there 
seemed no alternative but to attempt to establish some new 
line of communication with India. To compass this end, a 
hundred schemes were now propounded, entertained, and 
forsaken in swift and bewildering succession. Traveller 
after traveller issued forth to reconnoitre and survey the 
avenues to the Eastern World. And the marvellous reports 
carried back, and circulated by some of them on their return, 
tended still more to inflame the rage for discovery by sea 
and land. 

This new spirit of discovery, — affecting alike prince and 
peasant, merchant and mariner, — found, about the beginning 
of the fifteenth century, its most chivalrous head and cham- 
pion in Henry of Portugal. Deeply imbued with the char- 
acteristic zealotism of his age, and eminently distinguished 
for those attainments in general science which enabled him 
at once to project and superintend the most daring enter- 
prises, he summoned around him all the most skilful and 
adventurous spirits in Christendom. The grand object of 
his ambition was to find out some new passage to India, 
that might supersede all the old routes already preoccupied. 
To the prosecution of this object, he unweariedly devoted 
the labour of his life ; and on it prodigally lavished the re- 
sources of his kingdom. And though he lived not to witness 
its accomplishment, the valuable discoveries made by his 
commanders along the coast of Africa encouraged his suc- 
cessors to follow, with unabated ardour, in his romantic 
career. 



10 



It was to the furtherance of the same design that the 
celebrated Columbus dedicated his life. The desire of dis- 
covering a new passage to India supplied the ruling motive : 
an implicit belief in a geographical error chalked out his 
course. By studying, as we are credibly informed, "Aris- 
totle's description of the world, and the tables of Ptolemy, 
who extends the eastern parts of the Continent of Asia so 
enormously as to bring it almost roimd to the western parts 
of Europe and Africa, he very properly concluded (suppos- 
ing their descriptions to be correct, and they were then 
universally received as such) that, instead of a long and 
tedious voyage round the extremity of Africa, a much shorter 
passage to India might be made by sailing directly west 
from Europe." In undoubting confidence, as to the prac- 
ticability of this scheme, he eventually did set sail to the 
West ; and stumbled unexpectedly on those islands, which 
he fondly concluded to be the long-wished for' land of 
promise ; and which, from that erroneous impression, were 
designated, and still bear the name of, " West Indies." 

At length, the perseverance of the Portuguese monarchs 
overcame all difficulties. In I486. Diaz reached the most 
southern extremity of Africa, giving it the significant appel- 
lation of " The Cape of Storms ;" — a name which his sove- 
reign, overjoyed at the good hope which it held out of ulti- 
mate success, changed into the more auspicious one of M The 
Cape of G-ood Hope." 

In 1498, Vasco De Gama doubled the Cape, and made 
good his landing at Calicut, the principal city on the Mala- 
bar, or western shore of the Indian Peninsula. 

Next to the voyage which terminated in the discovery of 
the American Continent, — if second even to that in its influ- 
ence over the destinies of man, — this was, bevond all debate, 
the most important one that had ever been accomplished 
since the world began. Of its successful issue, it has, with- 
out the slightest exaggeration, been remarked, that it M ef- 
fected a complete revolution in the commerce and policy of 
all civilized nations." The doom of Venice, and other flour- 
ishing cities was at once sealed. The trade of India being 



11 



now diverted into a new channel, all their power and glory 
evanished along with it ; and as these fell, the new mono- 
polist cities and nations must rise. 

Grama's safe return to Lisbon, was hailed as the harbinger 
of a new and glorious era. The city rung with transports 
of joy. The inhabitants, concluding that the rich commerce 
of India and the East was now secured to them, " proposed 
nothing less than to become immediately, the first commercial 
and maritime power in the world" And to crown all with 
the inviolable sanction and ratification of heaven itself, a 
bull from " God's vicegerent, 1 ' conferred on the Portuguese 
monarch the proud title of " Lord of the Navigation, Con- 
quests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India." 

So long as Lisbon enjoyed the exclusive monopoly of In- 
dian commerce, she sat as queen among the cities of the 
nations. But her days of glory were numbered too. One 
century had scarcely run its course, when the emporium of 
Eastern trade was transferred from Lisbon to Amsterdam. 
Forthwith, the law of co-existent prosperity came into full 
operation. The former sank in proportion as the latter 
rose. When Portugal might almost be blotted out from 
the map of independent sovereignties, Holland was enabled 
to assume the rank of a first-rate power in the balance of 
Europe. 

Meanwhile, that nation, which was destined one day to 
reap the largest harvest of fruit from India, and destined 
also, we trust, to confer the largest amount of benefit in 
return, was no unconcerned spectator. The spirit of indus- 
try and improvement, already partially awakened, received, 
from the long and peaceful reign of Elizabeth, an accelera- 
tive i?npetus, which opened for itself outlets — from Spitz- 
bergen to the Canary Isles in the Old World, — and from 
Newfoundland to Brazil, in the New. In the case of 
a nation thus predisposed for maritime discovery and bold 
enterprise, the early brilliant successes of the Portuguese were 
enough to set all into ferment and combustion, — inflaming 
at once the cupidity and the fancy of a mercantile and ima- 
ginative people. Over the trade of India, all history and 



12 



tradition had united in throwing the glare of a strange 
and undefined magnificence. And all, from the monarch 
on the throne down to the humblest citizen, were now 
suddenly seized with a new and unwonted ardour, — a 
restless, boundless, insatiable ambition to share in the gor- 
geous commerce of diamonds and pearls, embroideries and 
perfume. 

But how could this be obtained \ From priority of dis- 
covery and settlement, the Portuguese claimed an exclusive 
right to the passage of the Cape ; and were determined, by 
an appeal to arms, to vindicate and enforce their pretended 
claim. What then was to be done ! Proclaim war against 
Portugal ! No. England was not then prepared to pro- 
voke and defy so formidable a foe. What then ? Abandon 
the pursuit of the golden prize ? No. The spirit that had 
been raised was not partial, local, or isolated : it was not 
the moving pulse of an individual or of a company : it was 
not the animating breath of one particular rank or class. 
It pervaded all classes, all ranks, and all districts of the 
land. It had been so cherished and fed that no obstruc- 
tions could arrest its flow, and no blighting disappoint- 
ments extinguish its vitality. Pent up for a season, it only 
gathered fresh materials for ignition and explosion. Im- 
patient of control, it at last broke forth. Is it asked, in 
what direction? Let the narration of the wondrous series of 
voyages that figure so conspicuously in the annals of the six- 
teenth century, furnish the reply ; — voyages, which all must 
have read with the thrilling interest of romance, — voyages, 
which added more to our knowledge of the surface of the 
globe, than all that have since been undertaken, — voyages, 
which threw fresh lustre round the name of Britain ; and 
helped to train and discipline her sons for afterwards wield- 
ing the sceptre of the ocean ! For, what was the leading 
and most prominent object of them all ? Is it not memor- 
able ? — Is it not worthy of everlasting remembrance, that 
they all had for their grand, and almost exclusive object, the 
discovery of some new passage to India ? — some new channel 
through which the stream of wealth from that never-failing 



13 



fountain, might, without let or hindrance from the Crown 
of Portugal, flow in direct upon the British Isles. 

Why, in the time of Henry VIII. (1527,) were two at- 
tempts made to double, by the north-west, the American 
continent I It was to open up, if possible, a pathway of 
communication with India, that might be undisputed by the 
jealousy of the Portuguese, and wholly independent of their 
exclusive pretensions to the passage of the Cape. When 
these first attempts failed, what was it, in the reign of Ed- 
ward VI., that led an adventurous squadron along the coasts 
of Norway, and Russian Lapland, as far as the harbour of 
Archangel ? It was the anticipation of realizing, by the 
north-east, those dazzling prospects which the north-west 
had refused to yield. — It was -the eager desire of reaching 
India ! Notwithstanding the calamitous issue of an expe- 
dition in which almost all who had embarked, perished 
miserably amid cold and famine, what led to renewed efforts 
in the same direction, in the face of perils and of deaths ? It 
was the ardent hope of being able to effect a north-east 
passage to India ! And when the frozen barriers of the 
Northern seas could not be forced, what led to the bold pro- 
ject of preparing a highway of three or four thousand 
miles across Russia by the Caspian ? It was still the in- 
extinguishable ambition to grasp the riches of India ! 

The whole of these north-eastern schemes having failed, 
what turned the attention of private adventurers, and of 
government itself, a second time, to the north-west ? What 
prompted Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and other intrepid 
commanders, to make those discoveries which have enstamp- 
ed their names on all the creeks, and straits, and gulphs, and 
bays of Greenland and Labrador ! It was the unconquerable 
wish to effect a landing on the wealthy shores of India ! 

All these persevering efforts, so far as the main object was 
concerned, having been signally crowned with disaster and 
defeat, were the ardours of the national mind cooled, its 
energies crushed, its hopes annihilated ? No : the original 
taste and desire had grown into an insatiable craving — a 
universal passion — which nought but the actual possession 



14 



of the coveted prize could gratify or assuage. Baffled in 
all these enterprises, the longing of the national mind is still 
unquenched. Where can it find for itself another outlet 2 
Let the new and splendid series of voyages to the south- 
western hemisphere furnish the reply. Hemmed in by the 
impassable barrier of the Northern Ocean ; scared away by 
the trackless deserts of Central Asia ; debarred, by a threat- 
ened appeal to arms, from attempting a south-east passage 
by the Cape ; — they next conceived the bold idea of endea- 
vouring to compass the grand design by the south-west, 
around the extremity of the American continent. For, 
what mainly led to the celebrated voyages of Drake and 
Cavendish, who circumnavigated the globe, — discovering new 
regions, " the stateliness and -riches of which they feared to 
make report of, lest they should not be credited," — and caus- 
ing the whole kingdom, on their return, to ring with songs 
of applause ? It was to obtain for their country a share of 
that aggrandizing traffic with India and the East, the 
Portuguese monopoly of which so long continued to be the 
envy of all Europe. 

Without pursuing the subject any farther, we may conclude 
with some corroborative remarks by the historian of British 
India. " The tide of maritime adventure," says he, " which 
these splendid voyages were so calculated to swell, flowed 
naturally towards India, by reason of its fancied opulence, 
and the prevailing passion for the commodities of the East. 
The impatience of our countrymen had already engaged 
them in a circuitous traffic with that part of the globe. 
Thev sailed to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 
where they found cargoes of Indian goods conveyed over 
land ; and a mercantile company, denominated the Levant 
Company, was instituted, according to the policy of the age, 
to secure to the nation the advantages of so important a 
commerce." Accidental causes, we are told, also " contribut- 
ed to enliven the admiration excited by the Indian trade." 
Amongst these was the capture of some of the largest of the 
Portuguese merchant vessels, laden with " spices, calicoes, 
silks, gold, pearls, porcelain, ebony," &c. ; — the value of 



15 



which " inflamed the imagination of the merchants, and sti- 
mulated the impatience of the English generally to be en- 
gaged in so opulent a commerce. 11 

While " the general current of enterprise now ran so ve- 
hemently toward India, 11 and the English, for fear of the 
Portuguese, still " fluctuated between desire and execution, 
the Dutch, in 1595, boldly sent out four ships to trade with 
India, by the Cape of Good Hope. This exploit added fuel 
at once to the jealousy and the ambition of the English. 11 
In 1599, accordingly, an association was formed — funds 
were subscribed to a considerable amount — the Queen was 
petitioned for a warrant to fit out three ships, and also for a 
royal charter of privileges. After some delay, towards the 
end of 1600, the first charter was obtained; and in May, 
the following year, the first fleet -of the East India Company 
set sail for India, direct by the Cape of Good Hope. As 
the result of a series of vicissitudes unexampled in the 
history of the world, not only did the commerce but the ter- 
ritory of India fall into the hands of British merchants. 
And has not the historic law, by which prosperity has been 
ever found coincident with the exclusive possession of the re- 
sources of India, been eminently verified and realized in the 
case of Britain ? Oh that British rulers and British subjects 
felt the responsibility which the briefest retrospect of the past 
must attach to our uncontrolled supremacy over Indian ter- 
ritory and Indian commerce ! From a view of that grand 
historic law, which has hitherto proved uniform and uni- 
versal in its operation for the last three thousand years, 
may we not, as patriots, well contemplate with solemn awe, 
the day that shall sever India from Britain, and transfer 
the stewardship thereof into other hands ? For if, weighed 
in the balance on that day, we shall have been found wanting 
in our national management of so sublime a trust, what can 
we expect from the analogy of the past, but to see the sun 
of Britain set, — to rise no more for ever ? 

Thus great and paramount has been the influence which 



16 

India has successively exerted on the prosperity of different 
nations of the West : — and proportionally great, sustained, 
and long continued, has been the mercenary interest excited 
in its behalf, on account of the prodigious worldly advan- 
tages which, for ages, have been reaped from it. But India 
has, at different times, awakened towards itself a peculiarly 
vivid interest, on grounds wholly, or in great part, uncon- 
nected with mercenary ends, — an interest varied and dis- 
tinguished in its character, according to the nature of the 
objects that called it forth. 

In glancing over the past, we may thus mark three dis- 
tinctive eras or epochs, of peculiar interest in India. There 
is first what may be termed, The era of romantic imagina- 
tive interest. Secondly, The era of romantic literary inte- 
rest. Thirdly, The era of vivid religious interest. These 
have been successive ; and in the arrangements of an all- 
wise Providence, manifestly preparatory one for the other. 

The era of romantic interest commenced long before the 
successful voyage of Vasco De Gama. The truth is, that it 
must be traced to the times of the Crusades ; and will be 
found, amid various ebbings and flowings, to extend itself 
through many centuries. The spirit of the Crusades had 
never died. Having been deprived of its primary object, it 
soon fabricated or formed to itself another ; — and then mani- 
fested itself, as a new apparition, under the form and garb 
of the spirit of chivalry. Deprived a second time of its lead- 
ing object, by the breaking down of the system of feudalism, 
it might seem that the spirit of chivalry, which was essen- 
tially the spirit of the Crusades, must be extinguished. But 
it was not so. The spirit still fraught with vitality only 
lapsed into a state of dormancy. Its smouldering embers 
were ready to blaze forth the instant that new fuel was sup- 
plied by the presence of a proper object or exciting cause. 
That object at length presented itself. India, bursting upon 
the view in all its novelty and splendour, was enough to feed 
and fan into a flame the slumbering fires of a less romantic 
and sentimental age. To discover a new inlet to that fair- 
est of the regions of the East, became a raging passion 



17 



with the lending nations of Europe. In this pursuit, the 
spirit of the Crusades— the spirit of chivalry — the spirit of 
romance — found a new and appropriate object. It then 
immediately reappeared, though now metamorphosed into 
the restless and daring spirit of foreign adventure and 
maritime discovery. 

The Portuguese, — saturated with the spirit of the age, 
and inflamed with the swelling reports of tradition and 
of distant fame,— sallied forth, prepared not for novelties 
merely : — they really expected, and were resolved to meet 
with wonders. And, in the absence of real wonders, such 
was the fervour of their enthusiasm, that it would have 
thrown the most brilliant colouring over the tamest scenes, 
— magnifying the most ordinary and commonplace into 
the marvellous, — converting every field into a garden of 
delights, every rock into a mountain of gold, and every 
valley into Elysian bowers. What, then, must have been 
the effect on such ardent, chivalrous, and romantic spirits, 
when they found, or imagined they found, the ideal pictures 
actually eclipsed by the tangible and the visible ! — When, 
even on their glowing fancies, the reality burst in a blaze 
of unexpected splendour ? Around them were strewn the 
most stupendous monuments of art — tombs and temples — 
palaces and towers — that seemed to bespeak an age when 
genii and demigods were denizens of earth, and compeers 
of mortal man. Before them, too, and on every side, nature 
flung forth her stores with a prolific bounty, utterly un- 
known in northern climes. To say that they were filled 
with amazement and surprise, is to say little. The impres- 
sion was altogether overpowering. From that time the very 
name of India became throughout Europe the symbol and 
representative of all that is great, glorious, and magnificent, 
in the products of nature and of art, — unsealing to the ro- 
mancer and the poet, a never-failing fount of imagery, which, 
blending with the flowers of Parnassus and the gentle 
ripplings of Helicon, has been woven into the richest dra- 
pery of modern song. 

Actuated by such feelings, and entranced by such pro- 

B 



18 



spects, need we wonder that the Court of Portugal and its 
emissaries in the East were at first heartily disposed to treat 
even Indian commerce as comparatively of secondary moment. 
In the acquisition and retention of that monopoly, on ac- 
count of its manifold advantages, they indeed gloried. But 
it was not enough. In itself cold and dry, artificial and 
systematic, tame and prosaic, it could not satisfy the warm 
and generous, but bold and flighty spirits of a poetical age. 
For these, more appropriate objects must be found. Nor 
were such objects long wanting. Soon did the presiding 
genius of the heroes of the tournament, and the enchanted 
castle, and the holy sepulchre, break forth on the shores of 
India, in a passion for adventure, and conquest, and mili- 
tary glory. Burning with enthusiastic ardour, they rushed 
on from victory to victory. In feats of daring and prodi- 
gies of valour, they seemed resolved to outrival the knights 
errant of bygone times. City after city, and kingdom after 
kingdom, lay prostrate at their feet. Princes were de- 
throned, and subjects raised to royal dominion, at their 
good pleasure. The pomp and pageantry of triumphs, like 
those of ancient Rome, were revived, — triumphs in which 
were strangely blended the ferocity and tenderness, the ge- 
nerosity and savage pride, that so peculiarly characterized 
the age of chivalry, — triumphs which gave rise to the splen- 
did eulogium of their own historian, — " The trophies of our 
victories are not bruised helmets and warlike engines hung 
on the trees of the mountains ; but cities, islands, and king- 
doms, first humbled under our feet, and then joyfully wor- 
shipping our government 

The glow of romantic interest which the reports and 
earlier achievements of the Portuguese threw over India, 
was, if possible, heightened by the vivid representations of 
the first French and English adventurers. These, it is true, 
went forth, chiefly for the promotion of mercenary ends ; 
but not without being imbued with a portion of the excited 
spirit of the age. All previous accounts they were enabled to 
confirm ; and, in some cases, vastly to exceed. The bright- 
est visions that ever floated before the fancy of poetic 



19 



dreamers in the West, seemed more than verified in the real 
magnificence of the court of the Great Mogul — the most 
splendid by far that ever dazzled the eyes of man. 

From a multitude of details, let us select a few, merely 
as specimens. 

Here is the portraiture given by Sir T. Roe, the English 
ambassador, of the personal appearance of the emperor. 
He represents him, on his birth-day, as " sitting cross- 
legged, on a little throne, all covered with diamonds, pearls, 
and rubies ; before him, a table of burnished gold, and on 
it about fifty pieces of gold plate, all set with jewels, some 
very large, and extremely rich ; his sword and buckler en- 
tirely covered with diamonds and rubies, and his belt of 
gold, suitably adorned ; his rich turban decorated with 
lofty heron's feathers ; on one side, pendant, a ruby unset, 
as big as a walnut ; on the other side, a diamond as large ; 
in the middle, an emerald, still larger, in the form of a 
heart ; his staff, wound about with a chain of great pearls, 
rubies, and diamonds, drilled ; round his neck, a chain of 
three strings, of most excellent pearl, suspended ; his arms 
and wrists glittering with diamond bracelets ; and on each 
finger, a ring of inestimable value." 

To this account of the personal ornaments of the sovereign, 
may well be subjoined Tavernier's minute description of his 
imperial thrones. " The Great Mogul," says he, " has seven 
thrones, some set all over with diamonds ; others, with rubies 
emeralds, and pearls. But the largest or peacock throne is 
set up in the hall of the first court of the palace. It is, in 
form, like one of our field beds, six feet long, and four broad. 
I counted about a hundred and eight pale rubies in callets 
about that throne, the least whereof weighed a hundred 
carats ; but there are some that weigh two hundred. Em- 
eralds I counted about a hundred and forty, that weighed, 
some three score, some thirty, carats. The under part of 
the canopy is all embroidered with pearls and diamonds, 
with a fringe of pearls round about. Upon the top of the 
canopy, which is made like an arch, with four panes, stands 
a peacock, with his tail spread, consisting entirely of sap- 



20 



phires and other proper coloured stones : the body is of 
beaten gold, enchased with several jewels; and a great 
ruby adorns his breast, to which hangs a pearl that weighs 
fifty carats. On each side of the peacock stand two nose- 
gays as hi^h as the bird, consisting of various sorts of flowers, 
ah of beaten gold enamelled. When the king seats himself 
upon the throne, there is a transparent jewel, with a diamond 
appendant, of eighty or ninety carats weight, encompassed 
with rubies and emeralds, so hung that it is always in his 
eye. The twelve pillars also that uphold the canopy, are 
set with rows of fair pearls, round and of an excellent water, 
that weigh from six to ten carats a piece. At the distance 
of four feet upon each side of the throne, are placed um- 
brellas, the handles of which are about eight feet high, co- 
vered with diamonds ; the umbrellas themselves being of 
crimson velvet, embroidered and fringed with pearl. This 
is the famous throne which Tiniur began, and Shah Jehan 
finished : and is really reported to have cost a hundred and 
sixtv millions, and five hundred thousand livres of our 
money. Besides this stately and magnificent throne, there 
is another of an oval form, seven feet long, and five broad. 
The outside of it shines all over with diamonds and pearls ; 
but there is no canopy over it. The five other thrones are 
erected in a magnificent hall, in a different court, entirely 
covered with diamonds, without any coloured stone."" 

Here is a single throne, estimated at a sum of money 
so large, that, — if all the chapels, and churches, and cathe- 
drals in Scotland were swallowed up by an earthquake, — a 
mere fraction of its value, after being reduced to the lowest 
reasonable amount, would more than suffice to rebuild them 
all, and replenish them with all needful furniture ! Who, 
after this, can charge Milton's language with hyperbole, 
when he so happily pourtrays " the gorgeous East" as 
having 

" Shower'd o'er her kings, barbaric pearl and gold ? " 

Rather, who will not be ready to admit that the hyper- 
bole of the great poet, however graphic, scarcely conveys 



21 



an adequate picture of the reality, as minutely described 
in prose ? 

Having seen the Mogul in his palace, let us catch a pass- 
ing glimpse of him in his outward movements. When he 
rode forth to take the field, it was amid a thousand ele- 
phants, not only richly caparisoned in gilded trappings, but 
having their heads splendidly adorned with precious jewels. 
When his encampment was spread over the plains, the royal 
tents, and those of the great omrahs or nobles, assuming 
every conceivable form of elegance and beauty, shone re- 
splendent with the most varied and brilliant colours. " It 
was," says Sir T. Roe, " one of the greatest rarities and 
magnificences I ever beheld." The whole appeared to re- 
semble a vast city of surpassing beauty and splendour sud- 
denly summoned into being by the spell of a Magician ; and 
realizing the wonders of Aladdin^s lamp, and the other talis- 
manic powers of the Arabian Nights. 

Need we wonder that accounts like these, and others 
equally authentic and astonishing, were calculated to 
heighten and perpetuate the romantic interest in India? 
Need we wonder that, at the same time, they tended to in- 
flame the cupidity and avarice of the European world ? 
Need we wonder that the commercial and mercenary spirit 
began to develope itself with mightier and more wide-spread 
energy than ever ? Or need we wonder at the long pro- 
tracted struggle that ensued, for ascendency in power, and 
monopoly in commerce, among the leading nations of the 
West? 

The history of this struggle is itself a species of romance. 
Who can peruse the exciting narrative of embassies, and 
stratagems, and sieges, and battles, which terminated in 
what has been justly styled the most extraordinary of all 
historical phenomena, — " the subjection of the millions of In- 
dia, and the expulsion of other Europeans from its shores, 
by a mere handful of British," — without being filled with as- 
tonishment and surprise ? Of a series of events so vast and 
complicated, it is not possible to furnish even a sketch. But 
we may glance at the result. A region of Asia, equal in est- 



22 



tent to the whole of Europe, (exclusive of Russia,) with a po- 
pulation of more than one hundred and thirty millions, — all of 
them being " aliens in blood, language, and religion ; V and 
many consisting of warlike tribes, so gallant and so brave, 
as to have again and again successfully repelled the com- 
bined hosts of the Moslem conquerors, with a heroism not 
unworthy of the best sons of Greece : — this vast region, with 
its myriads of inhabitants, situate, by the ordinary route, 
at a distance exceeding half the globe's circumference, has, 
to its uttermost borders, been subjected to the uncontrolled 
dominion of British sway ! And how many British-born 
subjects are dispersed over so immense a territory, — 
exercising government, — preserving peace, — administering 
justice, — and regulating the multiplied relationships, internal 
and external, of almost as many " peoples, and nations, and 
languages " as composed the Babylonian empire in the zenith 
of its glory \ Are there as many as may be congregated 
within a few square miles, in a single city, such as London ? 
No ; including all governors, and judges, and magistrates — 
all military officers and common soldiers — all merchants and 
other uncovenanted residents whatsoever — there are not, in 
all India, so wide in extent and so densely peopled, above 
forty thousand British ! — not as many British, as there are 
inhabitants in any one of the third or fourth rate towns or 
counties of the United Kingdom ! — not as many British as 
there are inhabitants in the single town of Dundee, or the 
single county of Banff ! And yet, so absolute and undisputed 
is the supremacy of the British sceptre — so regular and per- 
fect the organization of the British power ; — that one Bri- 
tish-born subject, under the designation of Governor-General 
— who may never have trodden on the Indian soil — may 
embark on board a vessel in the Thames,— traverse fifteen 
thousand miles of ocean, — land at the mouth of the Ganges, 
— proceed along that mighty stream as far as Dover is 
from Gibraltar, — perch himself on one of the peaks of the 
Himalaya in Central Asia ; — and there, by a single word of 
his mouth, or a single stroke of his pen, as by the waving 
of the wand of an omnipotent Enchanter, set all the teeming 



23 



millions of India in motion ! Can the whole annals of time 
furnish any thing parallel to this ? If not ; ought we not 
at once to conclude that Divine Providence has had some 
grand design in view, which it becomes us humbly to scan, 
and devoutly to prosecute ? 

It was not, as has been remarked, " till the British power 
had been settled on a basis that promised to be lasting, that 
the original conception of that distant land, as an Eldorado, 
and a country of enchantment, was completely broken. The 
regular intercourse with Europe which then ensued, and the 
formal routine of a European government on the soil of In- 
dia, seemed to break the spell for ever.' 1 

But no sooner had the era of romantic imaginative in- 
terest closed, than a new era— even that of romantic literary 
interest — began to dawn. More strictly perhaps it may be 
said, that a total change of circumstances led, not to an ex- 
tinguishment of the spirit of romance, but to a total change 
in the objects towards which it was directed. It would 
seem as if the spirit of the Crusades — the spirit of chivalry 
—the spirit of strange adventure— the spirit that incited 
to conquest and military glory— the spirit that regaled 
itself amid airy halls and golden palaces ; it would seem 
as if the same romantic spirit had been transferred to the 
discovery of new worlds, and the conquest of new realms, 
and the excavation of new treasures from the unexplored 
mines of Oriental literature. 

This new direction of the romantic interest, which Europe 
had so long felt in India, has been thus happily described 
by the North American Review: — "When the British power 
was substantially established, there was a call for other accom- 
plishments than those of the factory and the counting-house. 
The creation of civil offices, brought from England men of 
parts and education ; who, though far superior to the explod- 
ed errors, were full of curiosity and sanguine expectation 
with regard to the antiquities of Hindustan, its language, 
history, and scientific culture. Sanskrit learning was a vir- 



24 



gin mine ; and it would have been a prodigy, if those who 
first explored it had escaped intoxication from its vapours. 
The real magnificence of that venerable tongue, was enough 
to disturb the equilibrium of the judgment ; its obvious affi- 
nity with the Western languages, seemed to enhance its 
value ; the thirst for strange acquirements, and the ardour 
of discovery, made wise men credulous ; Greek and Roman 
learning was disparaged in comparison with the lore of 
India. A taste was formed for the gigantic beauties of 
Sanskrit archaeology. Cycles of hundreds of thousands of 
years, instead of exciting laughter, commanded admiration. 
The Mosaic chronology looked very small beside such colos- 
sal epochs : Men began to imagine that a flood of light was 
to be shed upon the world from the marshes of Bengal. 
Their exaggerated statements were greedily seized upon by 
European infidels : What delusion began in India, impos- 
ture promoted in France ; and as the ' new philosophy 1 
was predominant in Europe, it was soon a law of fashion to 
believe that the world was a million years of age ; and the 
passion for Hindu history and science became an epidemic. 
The chronological imposture soon met with its quietus ; but 
the literary phrenzy lived a little longer. The only correc- 
tive was increase of knowledge. Sir William Jones began 
his career in India with strong prepossessions in favour of 
Sanskrit learning ; but his previous acquirements were so 
various and extensive as to save him from infection. His 
own progress in Indian literature was wonderfully rapid ; 
and the Asiatic Society, of which he was the founder, 
brought the whole field, in a short time, under actual culti- 
vation. Before this process the delusion could not stand. 
The religion of the Brahmans was divested of its finery, and 
exposed in filthy ugliness ; while Sanskrit literature took its 
proper place as the growth of an ignorant and imaginative 
age, with the usual faults and merits which accompany such 
a pedigree. Half a century ago, men were mad with the 
idea, that the Sanskrit reservoir was to water all the world,— 
sweeping away the Scriptures and the Church of Christ- 
putting back the origin of time by millions of years,— and 



25 



swallowing up the poetry and science of the West in its own 
stupendous vortex of sublimity and wisdom ! Where is this 
notion now ? Buried so deep, that few believe it could ever 
have existed ! And thus has its final death-blow been given 
to the romance of Hindustan — and the illusory charm which 
once invested it seems gone for ever." 

As far back as thirty years ago, the Edinburgh Re- 
view distinctly sounded the necessity for a retreat from 
the regions of Oriental literary romance. Half in jest, we 
presume, and half in earnest, it thus announced its oracular 
deliverance : — " Situated as things are, we really consider a 
judicious limitation of an impertinent inquisitiveness about 
Hindu antiquities and similar topics, extremely salutary 
and reasonable. For, to bring the matter at once to a 
practical issue, would an accurate translation of the Pura- 
nas in the least curb the ambition of Buonaparte ? What 
effect would the most profound commentary on the Veda 
have, in procuring for the nation a wise, a strong, and an 
energetic ministry ? Would the price of candles be sensibly 
reduced by the most luminous disquisition on the Hindu 
Triad \ If the French intercept our teas and muslins, and 
carry them into the Mauritius, will the ladies thank us 
for importing an old-fashioned assortment of antediluvian 
metaphysics \ n 

But, as the era of romantic literary interest began to 
wane, the era of vivid religious interest began to emerge, in 
splendour from the shadowy twilight of a long protracted 
dawn. And was it not for the manifestation of this brighter 
era and the realization of its promised blessings, that all 
else which preceded it was overruled by Divine Providence 
as subservient and preparatory ? Can it be that a power 
so tremendous over an empire so vast and a people so count- 
less, has been placed in the hands of a few Britons for no 
higher end than that of enabling them to gratify their am- 
bition, their avarice, their vain-glorious tastes, and lawless 
appetites? No. Reason, philosophy, sound theism, Reve- 



26 



lation ; — all must unite in repelling the insinuation, as 
not less dishonourable than false. Whatever man may 
think, He who guides the course of providence, with whom 
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day, has respect to the everlasting covenant, — the mercies of 
which are sure; and the privileges of which shall one day be 
extended to all the kindreds of the nations. The march of 
His dispensations may appear slow, and their developement 
obscure, to a creature like man whose term of being is so 
swiftly run out, and whose power of vision is so feeble and so 
faint ; — nevertheless there is a progress that is stedfast, 
a developement that is clearly defined ; — and there shall be a 
glorious consummation. The decree hath gone forth — and 
who can stay its execution ? — that India shall be the Lord's ; 
— that Asia shall be the Lord's ;«= yea, that all the kingdoms 
of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and 
of His Christ ! 

And can it be, that Britain, the most central kingdom of 
the habitable world — inasmuch as of all existing capitals, its 
metropolis is that which would form the centre of the largest 
hemisphere tenanted by man, — Britain, the most highly fa- 
voured with the light and life of Revelation, — Britain, the 
most signally privileged with the ability, and the will, and 
the varied facilities for dispensing blessings among the na- 
tions : — can it be without a reference to the grand designs 
of Providence and of grace that Britain, so circumstanced 
and endowed, has, in a way so unparalleled, been led to 
assume the sovereignty of India 1 — India, that occupies the 
same commanding position in relation to the densely peopled 
regions of southern and eastern Asia that Palestine does to 
the Old World ; and Britain, to both Old and New ? — India, 
which, — itself containing a fifth of the world's inhabitants, — 
when once thrown open, may thus become a door of access to 
two-fifths more I — India, which, when once lighted up by the 
lamp of salvation, may become a spiritual Pharos, to illumine 
more than half the population of the globe \ No : it can- 
not be. 

Mark the singular concatenation of events. The trea- 



27 



sures of India, by awakening the cupidity, had, for ages, 
summoned forth the energies of successive nations of the 
West. As the emporium of commerce was gradually trans- 
ferred to countries more remote, the difficulties of direct 
communication, — from the trackless deserts and unknown 
oceans that intervened, — became increasingly multiplied. 
Then it was that the tide of enthusiasm, which had so 
long found its proper outlet in crusades and chivalry, was 
turned into the channels of maritime discovery with a spe- 
cial view to India. Hence the extraordinary series of voy- 
ages which terminated in doubling the Cape. Once landed 
on the longed-for shores, the Europeans soon perceived that 
in order to secure uninterruptedly the advantage of Indian 
commerce, they must become masters of the Indian soil. 
Hence the unprecedented series of conquests which terminated 
in the unrivalled supremacy of the British. Possessed of 
the Indian territory, the British soon found that, in order to 
retain it, they must conciliate the natives by a due atten- 
tion to their customs, manners, and laws. Hence the re- 
markable series of investigations which terminated in un- 
locking the mysteries of Sanskrit lore. 

All things being now ready, there began to spring up in 
the bosom of the British churches a wide and simultaneous 
sense of the solemn responsibility under which they had been 
laid by the events of Providence, to avail themselves of so fa- 
vourable an opening for the diffusion of the Gospel through- 
out the Eastern World. Men qualified to undertake the 
high commission, must be sent across the ocean ; — and have 
not the toils, and perils, and successes of Vasco De Gama 
and other navigators opened up a safe and easy passage ? 
That their labours might pervade the country and strike a 
deep and permanent root into the soil, they must be de- 
livered from the caprices of savage tyranny and the ebulli- 
tions of heathen rage ; — and have not our Olives and our 
Wellingtons wrested the rod of power from every wilful 
despot ; and our Hastings and Wellesleys thrown the broad 
shield of British justice and British protection alike over all ? 
In order that they might the more effectually adapt their 



28 



communications to the peculiarities of the people, they must 
become acquainted with the learned language of the country, 
and through it with the real and original sources of all prevail- 
ing opinions and observances, sacred and civil; — and have not 
our Joneses, and our Oolebrookes unfolded the whole, to prove 
subservient to the cause of the Christian philanthropist? 
In this way, have not our navigators, our warriors, our 
statesmen, and our literati, been unconsciously employed, 
under an overruling Providence, as so many pioneers to 
prepare the way for our Swartzes, our Buchanans, our Mar- 
tyns, and our Careys ? 

Nor is this conclusion in the least degree affected by the 
consideration, that the sacred cause of Gospel propagation 
was directly opposed by so many of those who indirectly la- 
boured most to insure its ultimate triumph. The indifference 
or opposition of individuals or governments, as well as then- 
immediate aid, God has often made instrumental to the ad- 
vancement of His purposes. How often is it adduced as a 
powerful argument in defence of Christianity, that it was not 
espoused, but resisted to the uttermost, by the J ews as a 
nation \ And why \ Because, if it had been so espoused, 
it might be reckoned a fabrication of State policy. The 
same remark applies in its fullest force to India. Had 
our merchant princes, or literary savans, or those armed 
with political and martial power, been seized with a proselyt- 
ing zeal ; — and had thousands, outwardly at least, been 
brought to confess the name of Jesus, — then, not only might 
their motives have been thrown open to suspicion, — but, to 
the influence of wealth and learning and power, would all the 
credit and the glory be ascribed : — man alone would be 
exalted, and the great God concealed from our view. But 
when the work has been left to humble missionaries of the 
Cross, who are destitute of wealth and unarmed with power, 
and who habitually subordinate human learning to the " wis- 
dom of God ; " — yea, when the men of wealth and learning 
and power have been arrayed in fierce and threatening 
attitude against them ; — then, in the acknowledged weak- 
ness of the instrument, is there a mighty demonstration 



29 



that success must be the result of a higher agency,— -even 
that of the Almighty Spirit of all grace, whose alone is the 
excellency of the wisdom and the power. 

Let the men of wealth, of learning, and of power, therefore, 
pursue their own specific ends,— their own darling projects'. 
Let them despise or neglect the only means of effectually ame- 
liorating the millions of India. Let them continue to plead 
" the testimony of ancient history, the climate, the usages, the 
tastes, the religious and political institutions of the Eastern 
people, ,, — in order to shelter themselves from the plea of 
indifference and neglect, on the score that improvement is % 
impracticable. Let them muster, in formidable array, the 
strong hosts of caste and prejudice, so stoutly opposed to in- 
novation, and so " resolute to maintain what, from age to age, 
the people have been accustomed to venerate." Let them not 
cease to reiterate the conclusion of the celebrated author of 
the Spirit of Laws, that " India has always been, and India 
always will be, what it now is,"— in order to paralyze every 
attempt to ameliorate its condition ; and let them stigmatize 
those who labour in its behalf as entertaining extravagant 
ideas, and sanguine theories, and idle imaginations. Let them 
brand the effort to change " the character and habits of the 
people, and new-model the whole mishapen structure of 
society " as chimerical,— on the old principle, that " because 
an elephant is an elephant, and a Hindu a Hindu, we ought 
to leave them both on the plains of Hindustan where we 
found them." Let them do all this and much more. Their 
indifference and opposition will only render the final 
triumphs of Christianity over the idols of heathenism more 
signally the work of God. For, "the loftiness of man shall be 
bowed down, and the haughtiness of man shall be brought 
low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." 

Whatever the views and the conduct of the men of this 
world may be, we must never forget that, as Christians, 
the Divine injunction laid upon us is, to do good to all men as 
we have opportunity I Here, opportunity is made the measure 
of our expected well-doing. And when, or where has an 
opportunity of doing good to man, in the highest and 



30 



noblest sense of that expression, ever been presented to 
any Christian people, similar to that which British Christians 
now enjoy, in reference to the millions of India? The facilities 
now afforded in that distant land for the propagation of Gos- 
pel truth on a scale so broad and extensive, have seldom been 
equalled, never surpassed, in any of the realms of G-entilism. It 
is this circumstance which, above all others, ought to deter- 
mine the sphere, and regulate the amount of more immediate 
duty. Look to other heathen nations. Except China, there is 
none that remotely approximates to India, either in extent of 
territory or in denseness of population. But, if China exceed 
India in both, may it not be thought that it demands the 
first place in the calculations of the missionary enterprise ? 
Here, however, other elements must be taken into our reckon- 
ing. Mere magnitude, either as to territory or population, is 
not enough towards the formation of a sound decision. Faci- 
lity of access and liberty of operation must be held among the 
conclusive and determining elements in solving the problem of 
duty. Now, it must be confessed that, notwithstanding cer- 
tain favourable appearances and over-sanguine expectations, 
China seems^to the present time, in regard to direct mission- 
ary operations, nearly as much shut against us, as if encom- 
passed with an unscalable wall of brass. The same maybe said 
of Madagascar and other portions of the earth. It is our duty 
to watch and pray that all impediments may every where be 
speedily removed ; — for these heathen lands, as much as any 
other, are included in the inheritance of the Son. But 
how different at this moment is the condition of India ! 
There, we are met by no thundering edicts of a Celestial Em- 
peror to scare us away from its shores, — no exterminating 
decrees of a capricious Madagascar savage to expel us 
from a territory already partially possessed. Every har- 
bour along its extended coast is thrown open for our re- 
ception ; — every province, every city, and every village to 
its utmost boundaries, prepared to tolerate, if not to wel- 
come, our Gospel ministrations. Over the whole of that 
region of moral darkness, stable and uncontrollable power 
presides ; — and that is the power of a Christian monarchy. 



31 



There Christian governors legislate ; Christian judges and 
magistrates decree justice ; and Christian captains, wield- 
ing the sword of power, guarantee security of person and 
of property. All, all conspire to open up a free and un- 
fettered course to the herald of the Cross ; and serve to 
throw over him a broad and invulnerable aegis. How are we 
to interpret the final cause of such a state of things ! Surely, 
if ever Jehovah spoke by infallible signs through the leadings 
of His providence, it is here that He has uttered His voice — 
and the announcement of the oracle seems to be : — " Behold, 
without any fore-thought, cost or trouble, on your part: behold, 
the key of Asia is placed in your hands. A door great and ef- 
fectual hath been opened there for you : — enter ye in, and 
take possession of the land. If India has been allowed to 
continue for ages the theatre of one of Satan's mightiest 
triumphs, it is only that, in these latter days, it may be- 
come the theatre of one of his most disastrous defeats. 
If, in the pride of sinful independence, India has long re- 
fused to yield allegiance to Him who, on Zion's holy hill, has 
been anointed King and Governor of the nations, it is only 
that, — when made captive and willing in the day of His power 
and merciful visitation, — she may enrich and adorn, with 
more than the spoils of orient magnificence, the triumphal 
car of the conquering Immanuel." 

In order still farther to exhibit and enforce the duty of 
the British churches towards India, let us endeavour to illus- 
trate, by analogy, the striking peculiarity of its present 
position, from its parallelism with the most remarkable 
epoch in ancient history. 

What was the history of the world between the flood and 
the coming of Christ ? Was it not a history of the up-set- 
ting and down-putting of kingdoms; — until at length, a power 
arose, great, and mighty, and terrible, and exceeding strong, 
which ground into atoms the kingdoms of the earth? After ages 
of conquest and of bloody strife, the Roman emperor was en- 
abled to proclaim universal peace ; and in token thereof shut 



32 

the temple of Janus, — the open gates of which so long be- 
spoke to the eyes of every Roman citizen that war had not 
ceased to convulse the nations ! " Then," say our biblical 
critics and ecclesiastical historians, " Then, was the fulness 
of time ;— and then did the hosts of heaven, commissioned 
on the joyous errand, announce the advent of the incarnate 
Deity ." What, in like manner, we would ask, has been the 
history of India for the last three thousand years? What but 
a history of the up-setting and down-putting of kingdoms? 
At one time, divided into a thousand petty States, scowling 
defiance at each other : here, the parricide, basely usurp- 
ing the father's throne ; and there, the fratricide, wresting 
the lawful crown from his brothers. At another time, split 
up and parcelled into groups of confederacies, — cemented by 
the bond of indomitable hate, — and leaving the retaliation of 
fell revenge as a legacy to their children's children. After 
ages had rolled their course, — in the tenth century of the 
Christian era — our eyes are turned away from the interior to 
the far distant north. There, the horizon is seen thickening 
with lurid clouds, that roll their dense masses along the 
troubled atmosphere. Suddenly, the tempest bursts; and one 
barbarian conqueror issues forth after another. At length, the 
greatest and the mightiest of them all, — from the hyperborean 
regions of Tartary, from the gorges of the Indian Caucasus, 
— descends upon the plains of poor unhappy India, — pro- 
claiming himself the scourge of Grod, and the terror of men. 
His path is like the red lightning's course. And speedily 
he blasts the flower of India's chivalry ; and smites into the 
dust her lordly confederacies. Her villages, and cities, and 
temples, and palaces, lie smoking in their ruins. Through 
fields of carnage, and rivers of blood, he hastens to grasp 
the sceptre of a universal but transient dominion. All In- 
dia is made profusely to bleed ; and, ere her old wounds are 
healed, all India is made to bleed afresh. In swift and de- 
structive succession new imperial dynasties spring up out of 
the blood and ashes of the old. 

Such is the melancholy epitome of India's tragic history 
for nearly three thousand years. Oh ! how different the 



scene now ! About two hundred years ago, a band of needy 
adventurers issue forth from this our native land,— from this, 
one of the remotest islets of the ocean ;— and they sit down 
in peaceful settlements on India's fertile shores. By a 
strange and mysterious dispensation of Providence, these 
merchant-subjects were destined to become sovereign princes. 
In opposition to their own expressed wishes— in direct con- 
travention of the imperative mandates of the British Par- 
liament,— district was added to district, and province to pro- 
vince, and kingdom to kingdom, till at length all India lay 
prostrate at the feet of Britain. During the twelve years 
preceding that which has last terminated, for the first time 
m the course of thirty centuries universal peace did reign 
m India ;— and if there were a thousand temples of Janus 
there, the thousand temples might then be shut. Who now 
can resist the inference which analogy supplies? Were 
the Roman legions commissioned by an overruling Provi- 
dence to break down the barriers to intercommunion between 
the states, and nations, and kingdoms of Antiquity, to pre- 
pare the way for the ambassadors of the Cross to announce 
the advent of the Prince of Peace ? And have not the 
British legions been commissioned in our day, by the same 
overruling Providence, to break down the barriers to inter- 
communion between the tribes, and states, and principalities 
of Hindustan ! Have they not levelled mountains and filled 
up valleys,— to prepare a highway for the heralds of salvation 
who proclaim the message that ought ever to fall upon the 
sinner's ear more enchanting far than the softest sweetest 
strains of earthly melody ? Ought we then to have shut our 
eyes, and to have steeled our hearts against an opportunity 
so favourable for extending the boundaries of the Redeemer's 
kingdom? If we did, what ought we to have anticipated as the 
necessary consequence? What, but the usual retribution- 
even the removal of the trust that had been neglected or 
abused? And did it not seem, about a twelvemonth ago, as if 
the Divine patience had been exhausted, and the knell of Bri- 
tish connection with India had been rung out? While all were 
shouting their peans of triumph about the omnipotence of 
British sway, and the passing of legislative enactments 



34 



that were to consolidate and perpetuate our empire ;— lo, in 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the tidings reached 
us from afar, that, within, a mine of discontent was ready 
to explode in universal rebellion; and that, without, enemies 
on every side were marshalling their forces, to seize upon the 
spoil! Every one looked pale. For no one knew whether the 
next intelligence might not be, that the proud fabric of British 
power had suddenly dissolved,— like the apparently massive 
walls and turreted battlements of the clouds before the blast 
of the north wind. But of late, the prospect has once more 
brightened. When the decree was about to go forth, " cut 
down this unprofitable connection between Britain and the 
millions of India,— why does it continue to blight and wither 
the best interests of that mighty people it would seem as 
if the Angel of the Covenant had interposed, saying, " Spare, 
oh spare, a little longer; and see whether this hitherto pro- 
fitless connection be not yet improved for the grand end for 
which it was instituted and designed,— even the establish- 
ment of that kingdom of righteousness, that shall never be 
moved." 

And now, that the period of stewardship has, to all appear- 
ance, been prolonged, shall we, by again wrapping up the talent 
of the national guardianship of that distant realm in a napkin, 
once more provoke the Almighty in His displeasure to deprive 
us altogether of the trust? Now is the set time for diffusing the 
light of the Gospel through the length and breadth of India. 
Say not that we have not the means. The wealthy have the 
means in abundance, and to spare, — if they had only the large 
Christian heart to communicate. The poorest have something; 
even the widow has her mite, and if she have not, she has her 
closet; — and thence, in communion with all the saints on earth, 
may thousands of prayers be made to ascend into the ears of the 
Lord God of Sabaoth, more grateful and more acceptable far 
than the incense of a thousand sacrifices offered upon a thou- 
sand hills. Shallwe then refuse to redeem the time— refuse to 
employ the means, nowplaced so abundantly within our reach, 
of extending the renovating principles of the Cross among the 
millions of our fellow-subjects in idolatrous India \ — India, 
which is linked to so many of us bybeing the temporary home 



35 



or the perpetual grave of beloved friends ! — India, which is 
linked to all of us nationally, by being the brightest diamond 
in the British crown ! Oh ! if we neglect such a golden oppor- 
tunity of advancing the cause of the Divine Redeemer, how 
shall we be able to stand before the bar of heaven, and plead 
guiltless of the blood of the perishing millions that now lie 
conquered, prostrate, weeping at our feet ? Surely, me- 
thinks, this awful responsibility ought to paralyse into 
weakness many of the best-laid projects of life, and crush 
many of its busiest occupations beneath the weight of an op- 
pressive burden. Methinks it ought to introduce the pall 
and the shroud into the gayest of our noisy revelries ; and, 
like the handwriting on the wall of the palace of Babylon, 
suddenly freeze the flowing current of our festive excite- 
ments. Methinks it should follow us as an ever-present 
tormentor into the solitary chamber; and render restless and 
feverish the repose of night ; and haunt its fleeting visions 
with images of terror more alarming than the fabled ghosts 
of the murdered ! Oh ! if it do not, rest assured it is not 
for want of a cause more than adequate. 

But why should we appeal to duty and responsibility alone \ 
why not to the exquisite enjoyment experienced by those 
who know and value the privilege of being fellow-workers 
with the Great God Himself, in advancing that cause for 
which the world was originally created, and for the de- 
velopement of which the world is still preserved in being \ We 
appeal to all present who have basked in the sunshine of 
the Redeemers love, whether the enjoyment felt in pro- 
moting the great cause for which He died in agonies on the 
cross, that He might see of the travail of His soul and be 
satisfied— be not ineffable ? Oh ! it is an enjoyment which 
those who have once tasted it, would not exchange for all 
the treasures of the Indian mines ;— for all the laurels of civic 
success ;— for all the glittering splendour of coronets. It 
is a joy rich as heaven,— pure as the Godhead,— lasting as 
eternity ! 

In the midst of troublous times, when the shaking of the 
nations, and the heaving of the earthquake that may ere 



36 

long rend asunder the mightiest empires, have commenced, 
what stay, what refuge, what hiding-place can be found like 
the faith and hope which are the stronghold of the right- 
eous ? They whose faith has been firmly planted on the 
rock of Jehovah's promises, can look across the surges of 
the tempestuous ocean to the bright regions that lie beyond. 
Yea, should still greater dangers rise, and greater terrors 
frown, and days of greater darkness fall upon them ; oh, is 
there not enough to cheer and exhilarate their spirits in the 
believing contemplation of the latter-day glory ? Think of 
the earth, as it now is, rent with woe and burdened with a 
curse : think of the same earth, in the radiance of prophetic 
vision, converted into gladsome bowers,— the abodes of peace 
and righteousness. View the empire of Satan, at present 
fast bound by the iron chains of malignant demons that feed 
and riot on the groans and perdition of immortal spirits. 
Behold, from the same dark empire,— in the realization of 
prophetic imagery— the new-clad myriads rise, chauntingthe 
chorus of a renovated creation— the jubilee of a once-groan- 
ing but now emancipated universe. Over the slaughter of 
undaunted heroes, and the smoking ruins of some citadel 
that long held out as the last asylum of a country's inde- 
pendence, poets have sung of freedom's shriek. Over the 
fall and ruin of immortal spirits, and a world dismantled by 
the fall, we might covet the tongue of an angel to tell of 
creation's shriek. But surely with an ecstasy of fervour 
might we long for the voice of an archangel to celebrate 
creation's shout of joy over a world of sinners — saved— re- 
stored, through grace, to light and liberty. Oh that the 
blessed era were greatly hastened ! Oh that the vision of 
that mitred minstrel who erewhile sung so sweetly of 
" Greenland's icy mountains, and India's coral strand," were 
speedily realized !— that glorious vision, wherein, rapt into 
future times, he beheld the stream of Gospel blessings rise 
and gush and roll onwards, till it embraced every land and 
circled every shore ;— aye, till, " like a sea of glory, it spread 
from pole to pole." Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly ; 
even so. Amen, 



CHAPTER II. 



THE GRAND THEORY OF HINDUISM, WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY A STUPEN- 
DOUS SYSTEM OF PANTHEISM WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOME OF 

THE PRINCIPAL MODES IN WHICH THE THEORY IS EXEMPLIFIED 
IN PRACTICE. 

The necessity of knowing the real condition of a people, in 
order to the adoption of effectual measures for their amelioration 
— This illustrated in the case of India — Religion the master-prin- 
ciple in moulding the character, opinions, and practices of the 
people — Their religion contained in writings believed to be divine 
— These writings locked up in the Sanskrit language — Enumera- 
tion of them — Attempt to unfold the orthodox theory of the Brah- 
manical faith — Foundation of the system in the belief of one great 
universal Spirit — Description of the nature and character of this 
Spirit — Shown to be an infinite nothing, yet substantially all things 
— Reflections on the fact that he is without any moral attributes — 
The manifestation of the universe, at a time when nought existed 
but the supreme Spirit — Four distinct views of this subject enter- 
tained in the orthodox schools — All of them Pantheistic — Spiri- 
tual Pantheism — Psycho-ideal Pantheism — Psycho-material Pan- 
theism — Psycho-material-mythologic Pantheism — TJie geographi- 
cal and astronomical construction of the universe, deduced from 
the substance of the supreme Spirit — The peopling of all worlds 
with animated beings — The immense epochs of the duration of 
the universe, with its successive destructions and renovations 
— Glance a t the mode in which the grand theory of Hinduism is re- 
duced to practice — Various exemplifications — A graduated scale of 
rewards and punishments — Transmigration of souls a vital and 
operative doctrine — The wicked sent to one or other of innumerable 
hells — They reappear on earth in mineral, vegetable, or brutal forms 
— Obedience and acts of merit recompensed by admission into 
one or other of the heavens of the gods — The highest reward is 



38 



absorption or refusion into the Divine Essence— A series of state- 
ments to show how the facts and doctrines of Christianity beau- 
tifully contrast with those of Hinduism— Appeal to Christians. 

It is related of the once petty Mogul chieftain, Sultan 
Baber, that, — when fired with ambition, or, as the Maham- 
madan historian gravely assures us, "led by inspiration" 
to attempt the conquest of Hindustan, — he first resolved 
to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the condition 
of its inhabitants,— their numbers, their national charac- 
ter and spirit, their government and laws, their territorial 
and other resources, their means of resistance and defence. 
The more effectually to serve this end, he actually assumed 
the guise of a religious mendicant ; and, under the shelter 
of a character so sacred, he traversed, without detection 
or suspicion, the plains and cities, and strongholds of Nor- 
thern India,— surveying all with the eye of military genius, 
already planning pitched battles and sieges — and treasur- 
ing up the information elicited by the ten thousand varied 
inquiries which the sagacity and foresight of the future 
General could devise. What was the result 2 With the 
light of facts so numerous, minute, and accurate, his measures 
of aggression were contrived and adapted with such skill and 
precision to the end in view, that the outcast exile from 
the confines of the Tartarian desert, speedily became the 
sovereign Conqueror seated on the throne of Delhi, — the 
founder of a dynasty, which, in the pomp and parade of 
royal magnificence, greatly outrivalled that of the Ne- 
buchadnezzars of Babylon, the Caliphs of Bagdad, and the 
Caesars of Imperial Home ! 

Have we no lesson to learn from an example such as this \ 
Or, must we allow the children of this world to monopolise 
for ever the proud distinction of being "wiser in their 
generation than the children of light V If true to our 
profession, are we not soldiers in the service of a great 
King I Are we not commanded to go forth on a war of con- 
quest among all nations 1 True, our warfare is spiritual ; 



our weapons are spiritual ; the issues of our conquest must 
be spiritual ; and we have the promise of Almighty grace 
to sustain us in the conflict ; — but have we on this account 
nothing in common with the warriors of this world i Have 
we nothing to do with the exercise of reason and judgment, 
discretion and forethought, in propounding inquiries, elicit- 
ing information, combining the varied items of intelligence, 
adjusting plans, watching times and seasons and oppor- 
tunities for action ;— and, as the general result of such 
exercises, applying the most suitable means for the ac- 
complishment of specific ends \ Nothing to do ! — we have 
every thing to do with it. Reason and judgment, discre- 
tion and forethought, so employed, are the very instruments 
which Jehovah has been pleased to select ; and which, when 
selected and sanctified, He has graciously promised to render 
efficacious for the execution of His plans of redeeming love. 
Hence it is that, if it be at once our duty and our privilege to 
determine on the spiritual invasion, and ultimate possession, 
of such a country as India, — there is the same demand for the 
exercise of all our powers, intellectual and moral, in survey- 
ing — though from different points of view, and for the realiz- 
ation of very different objects — the actual condition of the 
people, through every variety of relationship ; — the very same 
demand and necessity as existed in order to insure the tri- 
umph of that daring enterprise, which transferred to the fugi- 
tive Tartar the crown and sceptre of the Indian Monarchy. 

At present, however, we have neither time nor space for 
an enlarged, comprehensive, and yet minutely accurate sur- 
vey of the existing condition of the millions of India ;— 
viewed geographically, in relation to the multifarious influ- 
ences of soil and climate on their physical and mental con- 
stitution, habits, and pursuits — or civilly and politically, 
in relation to the multiplied details of social and domestic 
economy ; as well as the complicated operations of varying 
systems of government, revenue, and police. Nor is such 
a survey necessary for our immediate design. The people 



40 

of India are allowed, on all hands, to be sunk into the 
depths of a demoralization which has become endemic and 
universal, — manifested in aggravated forms, and perpetuat- 
ed from age to age, as if engraven with a pen of iron upon 
their character. To account for such an unhappy condi- 
tion, speculators on the subject have resorted, some to one 
theory, and some to another. Works have been written, 
to prove that it has arisen solely from misgovernment— from 
the grinding tyranny of a despotism so intense and unmiti- 
gated, that, compared with it, " the autocracy of the Peters 
and Pauls of Russia may be called liberty and license." 
Volumes have been published, to demonstrate that the 
revenue and financial system of India, and that alone, is at 
" the bottom of the whole evil,"— alone has generated the 
present state of " moral degradation." To one who really 
knows India, this must sound very much like the para- 
doxical theory of the Naturalist, who would contend that 
icebergs are generated without frost, and that tropical vege- 
tation shoots up in wildest luxuriance without heat. Mis- 
government, in its various departments, has had its own 
share in imprinting hideous scars on the mind and heart of 
the people of India ; — but it is only one of many causes ;— 
and that by no means the most influential. In many re- 
spects it is itself only the natural effect of a more potent 
antecedent cause ;— and that, beyond all debate, is false re- 
ligion. As the instrumental cause in originating and perpe- 
tuating the past and present extraordinary condition of the 
people of India, their scheme of religious faith and polity is 
almost the all in all. 

But, how are we to ascertain what the religious faith of the 
people of India is in its theory and practical tendency \ Let 
this question be answered by another. Suppose a native of 
India were to visit Europe, how could he assure himself as 
to the nature and character of the religious faith of its in- 
habitants ? He would soon discover that, with certain ex- 
ceptions, one faith, or at least a faith under one generic 
denomination, prevailed over all its kingdoms and provinces. 
Is this, he might ask, a mere traditionary creed, founded on 



41 



no better authority than the senseless fetish of the Moor, 
or the witching spells of the Kaffer ? No : right or wrong, 
the great mass of the people would be found appealing to a 
common written standard, — an authoritative record, believed 
by them to contain a divine revelation. The stranger wishes 
to know what the system is. How is he to proceed ? There 
are two ways, either of which he may choose. He may 
consult with professors of the faith, and endeavour, from oral 
communication, to deduce his conclusions; or, he may at once 
refer to the original written standard itself. Which of these 
modes is likely to furnish the speediest and most satisfactory 
result? Surely the latter. In the former case, he soon finds 
not only endless variety, but such interminable contrariety, 
that he is utterly puzzled and bewildered, — a hundred 
schools of theology ; a thousand sects ; ten thousand varying 
opinions ; and the standard itself treated with deference or 
indifference through all gradations, between the extremes of 
absolute reverence or of absolute abhorrence. What then is 
he to do? What can he do, but resolve to apply to the stand- 
ard and judge for himself? As an impartial investigator, 
he may soon perceive which class of Christians hold most 
nearly by its plain and obvious announcements, — which prac- 
tically conceal these under a load of redundancies, — and 
which virtually annihilate them by countless omissions. 
With his acquired knowledge of the contents of the common 
standard, he may then look abroad ; and employing such 
knowledge as a clew to unravel the labyrinth, he may be 
able to trace his way along its most intricate windings. Or, 
to change the figure, there is, after all, as he cannot fail to 
observe, a central stream of orthodoxy,— though, as it rolls 
along over many soils, in widely distant realms, it ever and 
anon receives some new and peculiar tinge in the passage. 
And if there are numberless rills drawn off from the main 
current, he can now mark the points of divergence ; and can 
trace many of the interposing obstacles that force them to 
pursue devious courses. Whether he believe in it or not, 
he now sees what Christianity really is ; and he understands 
how it operates in stamping its impress on the mind and 
manners of Christendom. 



42 



Precisely similar is the case with India. There, unlike 
most other heathen nations, the people at once appeal for 
the root and origin of their faith and practice, to certain 
books which they hold to be divine :— they appeal to them 
as authoritative standards, exactly in the same way as Chris- 
tians are wont to appeal to the Bible. There, too, the same 
causes have produced the same practical results. In the 
course of time the sacred books have been variously inter- 
preted. Hence the rise of innumerable schools of theology,— 
with shades of difference more or less distinctly marked, be- 
tween the extremes of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Hence the 
growth of countless systems, or what, in European phrase, 
might be termed " Bodies of Divinity Hence the accu- 
mulation of a multitude of commentaries on the original 
standards,— and as many comments on the commentaries,— 
and as many more on these again, — till the number has swoln 
and risen almost into the region of the incredible. Still, in 
the midst of all, there is a main current of faith ; whence 
maybe seen spreading out branches, and sub-branches, into all 
the boundless vagaries of sect, schism, and heresy. Our great 
object, then, must be to make a direct appeal to the original 
standards, and therein obtain, if possible, a glimpse of the 
main stream of Hinduism. With the advantage of such a 
glimpse, we may, if we will, be enabled to trace the most mi- 
nute and subordinate ramifications,— whether spreading out 
into the smooth champaign of the sound, or into the rugged 
domain of the heretical. Without it, we may launch forth 
our bark of inquiry, but we shall soon find ourselves drifting 
on a wide sea, without sun, moon, or stars ; without chart, 
rudder, or compass. A knowledge of what is generally held 
to be the most sound and catholic system is indispensable 
to our understanding the varying shades of opinion within 
the pale of orthodoxy ; it is indispensable to a proper com- 
prehension of the divergencies of heresy ; it is indispensable 
to a full elucidation of the daring schemes of open and 
avowed unbelief ; it is absolutely indispensable to a satisfac- 
tory examination of the anomalous hereditary condition of 
the people. 



43 



We now speak exclusively of the Brahmanical system of 
superstition ; because it comprehends, in the number of its 
votaries, the vast majority of the people of Hindustan. It 
must not, however, be forgotten, that there is a very large 
Mahammadan population, of many millions, interspersed 
throughout all the provinces. The proportion of Hindus 
and Mahammadans varies exceedingly in different districts, 
— the latter being in some places in the ratio of a tenth, 
or a twentieth, or even less, and in others, greatly prepon- 
derant over the former. Besides both these classes, there 
are numerous aboriginal tribes thinly scattered over the 
almost impenetrable forests of the interior, and the almost 
inaccessible mountain ranges on the frontiers, that have 
never acknowledged the supremacy of Brahma, or bowed 
beneath the sword of the false prophet. Numerically, 
however, these tribes constitute no more than an atom of 
the dense mass of the population of Hindustan. 

Speaking, therefore, ma, generic sense, the Brahmanical faith 
is the national faith of India, in the same way as Christianity 
is the national faith of Europe. What influence Christianity 
has nobly exerted in Europe, in the way of impregnating its ge- 
neral mind ; moulding its governments ; regulating its juris- 
prudence; originating its institutions, social, civil, and sacred; 
communicating vitality and direction to much of its literature 
and science ; — Brahmanism has mischievously exerted in 
India — only to a vastly larger extent, and in a vastly intenser 
degree. It is this consideration which invests the subject 
with a practical importance that is utterly overwhelming. If, 
— like the faith of ancient Egypt in the divinity of crocodiles 
and onions ; or that of Chaldea, in magic and enchantments ; 

or that of Greece and Rome, in mythological heroes, if, 

like any or all of these, the religion of Brahma were now 
swept away as by a whirlwind from heaven, or shut up 
with its own deserted emblems, to hold befitting companion- 
ship with asps and snakes in the caverns of Elephanta and 
Ellora : — or if, like the barren speculations of Grecian and 
German philosophy,-_the idealisms of Plato, and the trans- 
cendentalisms of Fichte,— the Pantheistic reveries of Vyasa, 



44 

and the scholastic subtilties of Sankara Acharya, had been 
confined to the groves of the Ascetic or the schools of the 
Sophist then, indeed, would we not trespass on the time, 
or distract the attention of a Christian community, either by 
our expositions or our exposures. But it is because the 
Brahmanical system has, for three thousand years, exerted 
an omnipotency of malignant energy over the intellect and 
morals of the millions of India : — It is because it still flour- 
ishes as a living, operative, tremendous reality, — shaping the 
opinions, moulding the character, controlling the actions, 
and fixing the eternal destinies of all these unhappy mil- 
lions :— It is on this account, that pity and compassion, 
policy and duty, reason and revelation,—all combine in de- 
manding from British Christians a thorough examination of 
the system, that they may be enabled the better to adapt 
their measures for its final extirpation and overthrow. 



The system, in its varied departments of religion, science, 
and literature, is developed in writings that are held to 
be sacred. The grand repository of all these writings is 
the Sanskrit language. 

In times of remote antiquity this language, in its pri- 
mitive and least artificial form, must have been spoken 
throughout those Gangetic provinces that encircle what the 
religious associations of the sons of Brahma would hallow as 
their Jerusalem and Holy Land ; or what the glowing classi- 
cal recollections of the West would delight in surnaming 
the Troy, and the Athens, and the Olympus of India. It no 
longer, however, flourishes as a living vehicle of thought. 
Still, it is not wholly dead. As the fruitful parent of a nume- 
rous progeny it has transfused a portion of its life and 
substance and form, into almost all the vernacular dialects 
now in use, from the Indus to the Irrawady — from the 
spicy groves of Ceylon, to the Tempe vale of Cashmere. 

To the veneration wherewith the natives of India, from 
time immemorial, have regarded this language and its alpha- 
bet, there are scarcely any reasonable bounds. Its very 



45 



name implies perfection. Not figuratively, but soberly 
and seriously is it, at all times, spoken of by learned and 
unlearned, as the very " language of the celestials." To its 
alphabetic character also they attribute a divine origin ; 
and hence its ordinary, and indeed, only designation, — the 
deva nagari, or " the writings of the gods." " They are be- 
lieved," says Sir W. Jones, " to have been taught by the 
Divinity himself, who prescribed the artificial order of them 
in a voice from heaven." 

Nor is such praise altogether the hyperbolical effusion of 
superstitious reverence. European scholars seem to have 
vied with each other in giving adequate expression to their 
admiration of the Sanskrit. " As a language," says Halhed, 
I "it is very copious and nervous; and far exceeds the Greek 
and Arabic in the regularity of its etymology." In a similar 
\ strain, Sir W. Jones still more emphatically remarks, " It is 
a language of wonderful structure ; more perfect than the 
Greek ; more copious than the Latin ; and more exquisitely 
refined than either." The voice which thus issued from the 
oracles, on the banks of the Ganges, has been re-echoed from 
the academic bowers of England. The praise, observes 
Talboys, which Gibbon bestowed on the Greek, seems 
fully as applicable to the Sanskrit, " it is a musical and 
prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, 
and a body to the abstractions of philosophy." " The 
music of Sanskrit composition," adds Dr Wilson of Oxford, 
i " must ever be inadequately represented by any other 
tongue." And lest the field of eulogy should be monopo- 
lised by British literati, whether in India, or in England, 
the theme has been rapturously responded to by the 
savans of Germany and France. The Sanskrit, says Ade- 
lung, as a written language, " has been raised to the highest 
pinnacle of perfection." More than this, adds M. Chezy, 
I it is, by way of eminence, " the celebrated dialect, perhaps 
spoken by the gods of Homer ; and if not, worthy to be so." 

Do such eulogiums still appear too extravagant to quad- 
rate with simple truth 2 Let us then turn to the calm and 



46 



sober estimate, gathered from the researches of Professor 
Heeren. It would indeed be difficult, remarks the vener- 
able Professor, to instance another language exhibiting 
so just a proportion between the vowels and the conson- 
ants, in which it is not even exceeded by the Spanish. It 
admits the employment of rhyme, without, however, being 
fettered by its restrictions ; and possesses a poetic prose, 
richly embellished. It has, moreover, reached a high degree 
of scientific cultivation ; and presents us with abundance 
of technical terms to express the most abstract ideas. Al- 
together, even admitting that its claims upon our admiration 
have sometimes been enthusiastically over-rated, yet it is 
hardly possible to avoid considering it as one of the richest, 
most harmonious, and refined languages in the world. 

The original writings generally deemed sacred and canon- 
ical that are wrapped up in this venerable tongue, are 
prodigiously voluminous. They are ordinarily reduced into 
four classes, which are subdivided into eighteen heads. 

The first and highest class consists of the four Vedas. 
These are not only the most ancient, but the most sacred 
compositions in the Sanskrit. They are almost universally 
regarded as at once the fountains of all true religion ; 
and the primeval sources of every other species of useful 
knowledge. They are believed by the great mass of the peo- 
ple of India to be old as eternity— not revealed through the 
instrumentality of any human being, however exalted ; but 
proceeding direct and entire out of the mouth of the Cre- 
ator himself. On this account it is, that they are en- 
shrined in such unapproachable sacredness ; and challenge 
a reverence far more profound than is conceded to any 
other of the inspired writings. 

The second class consists of the four Upa- Vedas or Sub- 
scriptures. These were deduced immediately and severally 
from the four original Vedas ; and were delivered to mankind 
by Brahma, and other deities, and inspired sages. They treat 
of the theory and practice of medicine, — of music in its 



47 



most extended signification,— of archery, architecture, and 
sixty-four mechanical arts. 

The third class consists of the six Ved-angas, or bodies of 
learning, — derived from the same primordial source, — and 
revealed by divine persons, or written by inspired saints. 

They treat of the principles and facts of astronomy, of 

grammar, and prosody,— of pronunciation, and the signifi- 
cation of difficult words and phrases in the Vedas, of reli- 
gious rites and ceremonies,— of charms and incantations. 

The fourth class consists of the four Up-angas, or appended 
bodies of learning,— m named, from their being always placed 
last in the enumeration of the sacred writings. This is by 
far the most copious division. The first embraces the eigh- 
teen Puranas or sacred poems, believed to have been written 
by the divine sage,— -Vyasa. These treat of cosmogony 
and chronology,— of geography and astronomy,— of the 
genealogies and exploits of gods, demigods, and heroes,— 
of virtue and good works— of the nature of the soul, and the 
means of final emancipation. Besides the Puranas, the first 
Up-anga comprises the Ramayan and Mahabharat,— written, 
the former by Valmiki, the latter by Vyasa,— designated 
by Europeans the great classical epics of India,— the Iliad 
and Odyssey of Sanskrit poetry, — and believed by the Hindus 
themselves to be of divine origin. In the introduction of 
the Ramayan, its surpassing excellency is thus expressed : — 
" He who sings and hears this poem continually, has attain- 
ed to the highest state of enjoyment, and will finally be 
equal to the gods." The great object of those giant epics is 
to rehearse the achievements of Vishnu, the second person 
of the Hindu Triad, who is represented in the Ramayan as 
incarnate in the person of Rama ; and in the Mahabharat, 
as incarnate in the person of Krishna. Both, however, 
abound with digressions, or interlocutory conversations put 
into the mouths of gods, sages, and heroes. Of these the 
most celebrated is the Bhagamd Gita,—^ episode of the 
Mahabharat ; in the form of a dialogue between the god 
Krishna and his favourite pupil, the hero Arjun, on sub- 
jects of abstruse theology. It has been pronounced the most 



48 



" curious exposition of the half-mythological, half-philosophi- 
cal pantheism of the Brahmans" which has yet been brought 
to light. The second and third Up-angas consists of the four 
principal works on Logic or Dialectics ; and Metaphysics or 
Disquisitions on the essence and modifications of spirit. 
The fourth and last Up-anga consists of the Body of Law, 
called Smriti, or what is to be remembered; in eighteen books; 
compiled by Manu, the son of Brahma, and other sacred 
personages, — detailing all manner of duties connected with 
the worship of Grod,' and all the possible relations that can 
subsist between man and man. 

The writings now enumerated are usually styled The 
Great Shastras, or booh of sacred ordinance, — "sacred ordi- 
nance delivered by inspiration," — to contradistinguish them 
from a countless host of other works, original and derivative, 
whose authority, though often highly reverenced, may not 
be acknowledged as absolutely divine. 

What an aggregate do the sacred writings of the Hindus 
form ! Along with their number, only consider their bulk. 
Of this, from the circumstance of their being composed in 
a species of blank verse, or measured prose, some concep- 
tion may be conveyed to the general reader. The iEneid of 
Virgil extends to about twelve thousand lines ; the Iliad of 
Homer to double that number ; — but the Ramayan of Val- 
miki rolls on to about a hundred thousand ; while the Ma- 
habharat of Vyasa quadruples even that sum ! Many of the 
other sacred works exhibit a voluminousness quite as amaz- 
ing. The four Vedas, when collected, form eleven huge folio 
volumes. The Puranas, which constitute but part of the 
first of the Up-angas, extend to about two millions of lines ! 
In one of these it is gravely asserted on divine authority, 
that, originally, the whole series of Puranas alone consisted 
of " one hundred Kolis, or a thousand millions of stanzas ; 
but as four hundred thousand of these were considered suf- 
ficient for the instruction of man, the rest were reserved by 
the gods ! " Well might Sir W. Jones exclaim, that " where- 
ever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion 
of infinity presents itself," — and sure enough the longest life 



49 



would not suffice for a single perusal of works that rise and 
swell protuberant like Himalayas, above the bulkiest com- 
positions of every land beyond the confines of India ! To 
the system of Hinduism, as unfolded and developed in 
these ponderous masses, may not unaptly be applied the 
graphic language of our great Epic poet in reference to an- 
other theme. In strict and sober literality may we charac- 
terise it, as — 

An unfathomable ocean, without bounds, 

Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height, 

And time, and space are lost ! 

How, then, can we pretend or presume, within so narrow 
a compass as ours, to convey any thing like an adequate 
conception of a system so stupendous \ Doubtless, to enter 
into details, would be an utterly impracticable attempt. 
But is this necessary % We think not. When a traveller 
enters an unknown territory, anxious to carry away with 
him a vivid impression of some magnificent landscape, 
there are two ways in which he may proceed to realize his 
design. He may, first of all, set out with an examination 
of the different objects in detail, that bestud the diversified 
surface. He may skirt the lake, penetrate the forest, and 
emerge into the open field. He may trace the meandering 
of each sparkling rill, as it winds its way back into some 
Alpine glade. He may pursue the course of the mighty 
stream, now flowing on in unmurmuring peacefulness, and 
anon . bursting headlong in the foam and thunder of a 
cataract. He may, in retracing his steps, cross the verdant 
mead, and soliloquize in the sequestered grotto. He may 
then enter the umbrageous avenue, and confront the baro- 
nial castle, whose battlements seem to vie, in massive gran- 
deur, with the " munitions of rocks " that guard, from age 
to age, the bounding horizon. And last of all, he may as- 
cend some neighbouring eminence, and fix his admiring gaze 
on all the varied objects, harmoniously combined in one 
bright and glorious assemblage. Or, reversing the order of 
this procedure, our traveller may, first of all, mount the 

D 



50 



most commanding elevation ; and having caught, at a 
glance, a panoramic view of the wide-spread scene, he may 
then proceed to a minute and piece-meal inspection of its 
almost endlessly varied objects. 

We need not stop here to canvass the respective advantages 
and disadvantages of these plans. Either may issue in the 
same result ; as regards the ultimate impression and lasting 
recollections of the spectator. But, during the intermediate 
stages of the closer and narrower survey, the degrees of 
satisfaction in his mind may be vastly different. In follow- 
ing the former of the two plans, the relative bearings and 
mutual dependencies of the multitudinous objects, — viewed as 
parts of one great whole, — not being discerned, the traveller 
finds himself isolated at every turn, as if lost amid the in- 
tricacies of a labyrinth. If he have pursued the latter of 
the two plans, he can enter on the examination of particu- 
lar objects, with the full advantage of a previously acquired 
mental perception of their reciprocal bearings and connec- 
tions, as component parts of a harmonious whole. The 
latter plan, accordingly, is that which most travellers, hav- 
ing the liberty of choice, would be disposed to follow. Let 
us profit by their example. Without attempting to enter into 
a minute description of the various component parts of Hin- 
duism viewed separately and in detail, let us at once ascend 
the mount of intellectual vision, and endeavour to present a 
coup-d-cril of the stupendous system. And should the in- 
quirer carry away with him a general impression of the re- 
lative bearings and relat ions of the more prom inent objects, he 
will be the better enabled to fill up the outline from the 
subsequent investigations of a minuter survey. 

Strange as it may sound in the ears of those who may 
never have heard of the Hindus but as a nation of poly- 
theists and idolaters, it is, nevertheless, true, that the very 
foundation of their system is laid in the belief and assertion 
of the existence of one great universal self-existing Spirit, — 
the fount and origin of all other beings, animate or inani- 



51 



mate, material or immaterial. The incommunicable appel- 
lation of this supreme and eternal Spirit, viewed in its own 
abstract impersonal essence, is Brahm ; — a noun in the 
neuter gender, never to be confounded with Brahma, a noun 
masculine ; — the distinguishing title of the first person of 
the Hindu Triad. 

A distinct understanding of the real nature and charac- 
ter of this Supreme God of India,— in itself indispensable 
towards an adequate comprehension of the system of Hin- 
duism,— is highly important on other and independent 
grounds. Again and again have missionaries of every name 
expatiated on the degrading and abominable practices of 
Indian idolatry. For this, how often have the enamoured 
votaries of Oriental literature branded them as ignorant, or 
rated them as fools ? ' What ! 1 say they, ' abuse and in- 
sult whole millions of people, as if they were nothing but 
vile idolaters ! You credulously trust to modern apocryphal 
writings, and to corruptions of ancient truth. Go to their 
original standards, and thence learn that their creed is 
based on a belief in the unity of God ; of whom, as he is 
devoid of corporeal organs, and, consequently, beyond the 
apprehension of sense, no image has ever been framed by 
the artifice of man. 1 < Well,' the missionaries may reply, ' you 
appeal to the original standards, as if you monopolized all 
the learning, and we all the ignorance. To the original 
standards let us go. With these spread out before us as 
well as before you, we at once allow that a certain description 
of unity is predicated of the Supreme Spirit ; and that of 
it no image has ever yet been fashioned. But, with this 
admission, we do challenge you and the whole world of Orien- 
talists to prove, that idolatry is not, at the same time, sys- 
tematically taught, and its observances peremptorily enjoin- 
ed. The proof, however, may be spared ; since, in futility, 
it could scarcely be equalled by the attempt to show that 
the Novum Organon of Bacon contains no notice of the in- 
ductive method of philosophy ; nor the Principia of Newton 
any glimpse of the principles of gravitation. Besides, seeing 
that practically the great mass of the people are idolaters, 



we may well be excused for dwelling chiefly on that theme. 
Since it can be no insult to describe a people exactly as 
they are, and no abuse to designate things by their proper 
names ; and, since this is all that we have done, or ever 
will do, — to charge us with insulting and abusing millions 
of our fellow-creatures, is only to indulge in ' railing ac- 
cusation,' which it would ill become us to retaliate. 1 

Compelled to acknowledge that idolatry is not merely 
tolerated, but largely inculcated in the original standards 
of Hinduism, Orientalists still cling, with almost parental 
fondness, to the assertion of one Supreme God, as a suffi- 
cient counterpoise to all polytheism. What eulogies have 
they not pronounced on the sublimity and grandeur where- 
with his attributes have been pourtrayed ! How many, in 
consequence, have been led into the profoundest admiration 
of Hindu theism ! But lest any one should be carried away 
by an impression which may rest on nothing better than the 
principle of the adage, that " whatever is unknown is held 
as magnificent, it is proper briefly to approach, and nar- 
rowly to scan the subject. 

It is freely and fully conceded that to Brahm, " the Uni- 
versal Lord," all natural divine attributes are constantly 
ascribed in detail. He is represented as without beginning or 
end, eternal ; that which is and must remain, unchangeable ; 
without dimensions, infinite ; without farts, immaterial, in- 
visible ; omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent ; enjoying in- 
effable felicity. After listening to such a description, do 
you begin to think that you have been introduced into the 
society of beings, who, speaking with no mortal voice, have 
given utterance to the language of a sublime theism ? Or, has 
experience taught you to pause ere you allow that the mere 
ascription of epithets, however expressive of grandeur and ex- 
cellence, necessarily constitutes an infallible evidence of the 
existence of corresponding conceptions ? Or, supposing the 
conceptions to have once existed, have you learnt from the his- 
tory of the past, that language, more stable than fleeting 
thought, has often outlived primitive ideas ; and that, like 
an antique casket of rare workmanship, which may have 



53 



been the receptacle of precious jewels now no more, a lan- 
guage may continue to retain the loftiest terms which can 
now only be viewed as venerable relics of what was once the 
vehicle of conceptions correspondent in sublimity ? Or, does 
memory recall from the classic pages of Greece and Rome, 
many a passage illumined with the brightest portraiture of 
divinity ; — but illumined only to contrast the more strongly 
with the gloom of others which embody conceptions the most 
derogatory to the divine character and perfections ? And 
are you thus prepared to anticipate a like interblending of 
colours in the portrait of the Indian Brahm I It is well 
that you should; for on further inquiry, you soon find 
that there are no epithets more frequently applied to the 
Supreme Brahm, than such as signify that he is with- 
out qualities or attributes. Are you startled at the appar- 
ent contradiction I The Hindu replies, that contradiction 
there is none. If, indeed, the Supreme were represented as 
" invested with qualities and attributes," and " devoid of 
these 11 at one and the same instant of time, such representa- 
tion would be self-contradictory. But these different, or rather 
opposite and mutually destructive states, or modifications of 
being, are not cotemporaneous, but successive ; each of them 
being assumed alternately after immense intervals of time. 

The primary and proper state of Brahm's being, is that in 
which he exists wholly without qualities or attributes. When 
he thus exists, there is no visible external universe. He is 
then denoted emphatically the one — without a second. 
Not merely one, generically, as being truly possessed of a 
divine nature ; — not merely one, hypostatically, as being 
simple, uncompounded, and, therefore, without parts ;— not 
merely one, numerically, as being, in point of fact, the only 
actually existing deity. No. He is simply, absolutely, and 
by necessity of nature, one ; — and not only so, but he is one 
in the sense of excluding the very possibility of the exist- 
ence of any other god. Thus far a Christian might accord 
in the definition of the divine unity. It is, in words, the 
very definition which the Bible gives of the unity of the 
t only living and true God. 11 But the Hindu advances a 



54 



step farther. He conceives, that when Brahm exists in 
his proper and characteristic state, he is one ; not merely 
in the sense of excluding other gods, but in the sense of 
excluding the possibility of the existence of any other 
being whatever. He is thus not merely one, but the 
one, — the single and sole entity in the universe, — yea 
more, the only possible entity, whether created or un- 
created. His oneness is so absolute, that it not only ex- 
cludes the possibility of any other god, co-ordinate, or sub- 
ordinate, — but excludes the possibility of the existence of 
any other being, human or angelic, material or immaterial. 

The Hindu theologist does not stop even here. His 
Brahm, as already stated, exists " without qualities or attri- 
butes." What ! — literally and absolutely without qualities 
or attributes ? Yes, literally and absolutely so. The pos- 
session of qualities or attributes implies multiplicity and 
diversity of some kind. But Brahm's unity is so perfectly 
pure, so essentially simple, that it must exclude multiplicity 
or diversity of any kind. Consequently, he is represented 
as existing without intellect, without intelligence, without- 
even the consciousness of his own existence ! Surely this is 
the very transcendentalism of unity. 

No wonder though the Hindu often exclaim that his Su- 
preme Brahm is " nothing." In any sense, within the reach 
of human understanding, he is " nothing." For the mind 
of man can form no notion of matter or spirit apart from its 
properties or attributes. Let Brahm, therefore, be repre- 
sented as utterly devoid of attributes, and, to human ap- 
prehension, he must be actually as nothing, — a mere abstract 
negation more absolute than darkness, of which it has been 
remarked, that it is* endowed with the property of at any 
time admitting light ; or than silence, which has the quality 
of admitting sound ; or than space, which has the capacity of 
admitting extension. No wonder though the Hindu confess, 
with a peculiar emphasis of meaning, that his Supreme Brahm 
is " incomprehensible." There is a sense in which we, too, 
apply this term to the true God — Jehovah. But with us 
it simply imports that we can have no perfect, complete, or 




55 



adequate notion of His nature and attributes. Though the 
Great Jehovah be, in this qualified sense, incomprehensible 
by finite intelligences, He is not, on that account, utterly un- 
intelligible. We may know Him in part ; that is, so far as He 
has been pleased to reveal Himself in His works and Word. 
And such knowledge, graciously suited to our limited facul- 
ties, so far as it goes, is at once correct and true, though 
not by any means full, complete, or adequate to the trans- 
cendent Majesty of heaven. 

But the Brahm of Hindu theology is not incomprehensible 
merely ; he is utterly unintelligible. As represented in 
his proper and characteristic state, he is in reality neither 
more nor less than an infinite negation, — an infinite nothing. 
Yet he is described as positively existing, and that, too, in 
the enjoyment of ineffable bliss. This bliss or felicity is 
not, cannot be of a positive, but of a negative character — 
not active, but passive. Stripped of all attributes, he cannot 
exercise any ; consequently, he is wholly inoperative. Un- 
incumbered by the cares of empire, or the functions of a 
superintending providence, he effectuates no good, inflicts 
no evil, suffers no pain, experiences no emotion. He exists in 
a state of unbroken quiescence, — tranquil unruffled serenity, 
— undisturbed repose. In a word, his beatitude is repre- 
sented as consisting in a languid, monotonous, and uninter- 
rupted sleep, — a sleep so very deep as never to be disturbed 
by the visitation of a dream. Such a state of unvaried, unim- 
passioned blessedness, must ever remain really unimagined, as 
it is in itself unimaginable. To us it can seem little better 
than the bliss of a motionless rock in the dark caverns of 
earth, or a decayed trunk in the forest, or an insensate 
pebble on the sea-shore. Unlike the Supreme Divinity 
of Epicurus, — who, though idle and unfettered by the 
agencies of government, enjoyed, at least, a conscious and 
comprehensible bliss, occupying, as he did, some bright and 
balmy region where the cloudless ether ever smiled in calm 
effulgence, — the Indian Brahm is represented as dwelling 
mysteriously throughout the boundless solitudes of space — 
immersed in an abyss of darkness— and steeped in the felici- 



56 



ties of a slumber so profound, as to be not only without a 
dream, but without any consciousness of his own existence ! 

Yet this simple, unextended, indivisible — this formless, 
motionless, qualityless being does not always continue to 
exist amid the rayiess gloom, in a state of dreamless im- 
perturbable repose. No : After the lapse of unnumbered 
ages, he some how or other, suddenly awakes. Becoming 
for a moment apprehensive or conscious of his own existence, 
he breaks the death-like universal silence, by uttering the 
words, " Brahm is," or, " I am." No longer quiescent, — 
motion being now excited in him — he assumes and exhibits 
active qualities and attributes. " Dissatisfied, 11 says the sa- 
cred oracle, " with his own solitariness, a wish or desire for 
duality arises in his mind. In a moment, though himself 
devoid of form, he in sport imagines a form." — It is the uni- 
versal form ; or the ideal form, model, or exemplar of the 
subsequently manifested universe. " The question," as an 
eminent Orientalist has remarked, " the question, how does 
desire or volition arise in this simple being \ — forms the 
subject of many disputes ; but I believe that even the 
subtilty of Hindu metaphysics has not yet furnished a satis- 
factory reply." 

Be this as it may, the desire, when the destined period 
arrives, does arise. In obedience to it, the ideal form or 
image of the universe presents itself to the divine conception. 
For a moment it exists merely as an unmanifested image, with- 
out any correspondent reality. Speedily, however, the desire 
which originated the image or ideal form, is succeeded by 
an act of volition — willing the ideal form to be realized in 
actual visible manifestation. To the process of production 
we shall immediately refer. For the present, we must call 
upon you specially to remark, that when the universe has 
once been manifested, the Supreme Brahm instantly relin- 
quishes his assumed condition of wakefulness and activity 
— instantly renounces all his assumed qualities and attri- 
butes, or rather unitizes them into the simplicity of his own 
proper abstract essence — once more " changing," agreeably 
to the words of the divine Manu, " changing the time of 



57 

energy for the time of repose." How far such changes in the 
state of his being — how far such alternate assumption and 
abandonment of active qualities and attributes can cohere 
with the alleged immutability of his nature, it is not for us 
to show. The Hindu theologists reckon it a complete vin- 
dication of his unchangeableness to say, " that though the 
manifestation of this universe continues after it has been 
willed into existence by the Supreme Being 5 yet, as in him 
the volition immediately ceases, and he immediately returns 
to his original and proper state, he may, notwithstanding 
a change so very brief in its duration, be still represented 
as unchangeable— quiescent, without form, without quality, 
without attribute, or affection of any kind." 

Such is Brahm, the Supreme God of India. And as deists 
and infidels of every grade, have so often boastfully refer- 
red to the sublimity of Hindu theism, it is well to pause a 
moment and consider the character and attributes of the 
Supreme Brahm. 

Can it fail to have struck all of you that, with one or two 
exceptions, all the attributes ascribed to him might, with al- 
most equal propriety, be predicated of infinite space or of in- 
finite time \ Can it fail to have struck all of you that, in 
the whole enumeration, there is not the remotest allusion 
to a single moral attribute ? Now, what must any one who 
is not wholly bereft of his proper humanity, think of a god 
without moral attributes — consequently, a god who is not 
a moral being at all 2 Yet, strange and incredible as it 
may appear, such is the character of the Supreme God of 
more than a hundred millions of people ! Let the sacred 
Vedas be searched— let the Upanishads, the purest and 
most didactic portions of the Vedas, be investigated — let the 
Vedanta, the extracted essence of the Vedas, be examined 
— let all the standards of the higher schools of Indian 
Philosophy and Theology be scrutinized — and no where can 
a single moral attribute, properly so called, be found ascribed 
to the one god — the Supreme Brahm of the Hindus. 



58 



In the Indian Scriptures a counterpart may be found, in 
words, to the ever memorable declaration, 44 Hear, Israel, 
the Lord our God is one Lord." But in the enumeration of 
the perfections of the Supreme, nothing will be found in all 
the sacred writings in the least degree corresponding to the 
bright roll of moral attributes unfolded in the single pro- 
clamation of the God of Israel, — 44 The Lord, the Lord God, 
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness 
and in truth ; * — nothing bearing the most distant resem- 
blance to the glorious all-comprehending summary of moral 
excellence, 44 God is love, 1 ' — love, the efflux and undivided 
radiance of all moral perfection. 

But, if no moral attributes can be predicated of the 
Divine Being, how can men, constituted as they are, regard 
him with moral sentiment ? If there be no moral in- 
gredient in his essence ; no moral loveliness in his revealed 
character ; no moral excellence in any of his manifested acts ; 
— how can he be admired, or reverenced, or loved \ His 
omnipotence may astonish ; his eternity and other incom- 
municable attributes may strike with wonder and amaze- 
ment. But how can the declaration that he is self-existent, 
eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, unchangeable — birthless, 
formless, breathless, mindless, colourless — or the assertion 
or denial of any other natural or physical property whatso- 
ever, — awaken any moral susceptibility in the soul of man ? 
How can the contemplation of a being like this ever excite one 
moral emotion of admiration, gratitude, or love \ Now if this 
be impossible, where is the constraining motive to worship 
such a being, — and what kind of worship could be rendered 
to him ? — He might, may some one with a cold heart and 
withered affections reply, he might perhaps be intellec- 
tually adored, as the infinite, — the greatest of beings. Yes, 
adored he might be, simply as the infinite, by essences of 
pure intellectualism, if any such there are ; much in the same 
way as any other grand metaphysical abstraction might 
be adored. But such adoration, compared with what we 
understand as included in worship, must be the shadow 
of a dream. Even this dreamy shadow of abstract horn- 



59 



age, how are men in general to be able or willing to 
render \ No : we may lay it down as indisputable, that a 
god, without moral attributes, must be to man in his 
present state the same as no god at all. Practically 
the delineation of such a god could only be equivalent to 
the promulgation of a system of atheism. 

Lest this might appear to any one an uncertain inference, 
there is another feature in the character of the Supreme 
Brahm, which at once forbids the possibility of rendering 
to him any real homage or worship. He is represented 
as assuming certain attributes for the purpose of manifest- 
ing the universe. But his assumption of these is only for a 
moment. Instantly he relapses into a state of unthinking, 
unconscious repose. Now how can such a God be an object 
of worship \ Even if all moral as well as natural attributes 
had been assumed at the time of creation, of what avail 
were it, seeing that they are so speedily re-absorbed into his 
mysterious essence ? If in reference to this world his at- 
tributes be not only circumscribed, but really annihi- 
lated, are not men landed in practical atheism? What 
challenges man's veneration more than an unlimited power 
to expand itself in acts of goodness ? What challenges his 
love more than an unrestrained willingness to exercise that 
power? What challenges his gratitude more than the 
knowledge that it has been already manifested, times and 
ways without number? What challenges his trust and 
confidence more than the assurance that it ever will be 
exhibited in every time of need ? What challenges devout 
admiration more than the view of that superintending 
providence which can at once extend to countless worlds 
that roll through the firmament, and to the minutest atoms 
that crumble beneath our feet ? What challenges solemn awe 
and fearfulness of sin, filial regard and active obedience, more 
than the contemplation of an Almighty Being, who is holy 
in all His ways, and righteous in all His works,— determined 
to execute vengeance on the wicked, and to load the good 
with the amplest recompenses of reward ? What challenges 
the unceasing expression of reverence and adoration, 



60 

prayer and praise, confession and humble acknowledg- 
ment, more than the certain belief that a just and beneficent 
God is every where present, and ever nigh,— ever cogniz- 
ant of the most secret thoughts, and ever attentive to the 
suppliant's voice ? 

But if the Supreme God has wholly withdrawn himself from 
the conservation of the world : if, through the non-existence 
of moral attributes, and the absorption or annihilation of 
the rest, he has neither the power nor the will to do good 
or evil — to reward the righteous, or punish the wicked : 
if, bent only on the uninterrupted enjoyment of his own 
beatitude, he neither sees, nor hears, nor knows, nor cares 
about any of his creatures : — how is it possible to render to 
him any act of homage, or devotion, or worship whatso- 
ever % To dream of any positive act of adoration and praise 
to such a being, would be more absurd than the service of 
the grossest idolater. For the latter, however deluded and • 
irrational, does believe, that the block he worships is either 
a divinity, or the peculiar habitation of a divinity who sees 
and hears— a divinity who is able to avenge and mighty to 
succour. But to attempt to worship Brahm, at the very 
moment that he is declared to be immersed in a slumber 
so deep, that it is without dreams — a stupor so profound, 
that it resembles the sleep of death— were a pre-eminence 
of phrenzy to which insanity alone could aspire. 

Hence arises the solution of a difficulty with which many 
have been perplexed. Knowing that the Hindus in general 
verbally profess their belief in the unity of God, — one Brahm 
without a second being the expression by which the Supreme 
Deity is ordinarily distinguished, — a pious author has re- 
marked, " It is a painful reflection, that not a single temple, 
dedicated to the One God, is to be found in all Hindustan ; nor 
is any act of worship, in any form, addressed by the people to 
Him." The reply given by the admirers of Hinduism is, that 
the " representing the Supreme Being by images, or the hon- 
ouring him by the institution of sacred rites and the erection 
of temples, must be perfectly incompatible with every con- 
ceivable notion of an all-pervading, immaterial, incorporeal 



61 



spirit." It is very true, that the attempt to represent the su- 
preme incorporeal Spirit by a visible image would be absurd. 
So would the attempt to represent the angelic, or the hu- 
man incorporeal spirit. The intellect of a Newton is amply 
shadowed forth in his great work, the Principia, — but who, 
without folly, could say that the very intellect itself could be 
adequately delineated on the canvass of the painter, in the 
statue of the sculptor, or in the block of the image-maker ? It 
is, however, passing strange to insinuate, that the supreme 
incorporeal Spirit cannot be honoured by the erection of 
temples, or the performance of sacred rites in the celebration 
of his worship. There is no incompatibility here. The 
followers of Christ, though specially exhorted to worship 
God who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth, have their tem- 
ples and their sacred ordinances. So might the Hindus, if 
nothing interposed unless the circumstance that Brahm 
was an incorporeal spirit. The real cause, after all, why 
there are neither temples, nor sacred rites, nor acts of 
worship in honour of Brahm is, that he is so profoundly 
asleep, that he neither knows nor cares more about mortals 
than the dust which they trample beneath their feet. To 
worship him, therefore, is impossible. 

Still, it may be thought, that he may be the object of pro- 
found meditation. Undoubtedly he may ; but much in the 
same way as infinite space or infinite time may become the 
dry and frigid, though intense subject of meditation to cer- 
tain metaphysical minds. Such objects of meditation, how- 
ever, are wholly beyond the range of the vast multitude of 
mankind. So that, for all except one in a hundred or a 
thousand, a being like Brahm is as idle, and useless, and in- 
efficacious, as if non-existent. 

Once more, it may be said, though there can be neither wor- 
ship normeditation of such an abstract being asBrahm on the 
part of the mass of mankind, might they not, at least, cherish 
a grateful remembrance of him as the original source of all ? 
Doubtless there might be some remembrance of him cherished. 
But this consideration is far too feeble and remote to exert 
any salutary influence on the unthinking mass. We might, 



62 

with far better prospect of success, try to excite active mo- 
tions of reverence and gratitude in the hearts of the millions 
of Europe towards Japhet our great progenitor. It is the 
dread of his avenging power, or the naming sword of his 
justice, that drives multitudes to fear a Superior Power. It 
is the belief and felt experience of a benign and generous 
propension to crown with loving-kindness and tender mercies, 
that impels multitudes more to admire, venerate, and love. A 
constant and present benefactor, however humble his rank, 
must be regarded with far livelier emotions of esteem and 
grateful remembrance, than the monarch at a distance who 
rules over us — preserving the peace of the realm — enforcing 
obedience to the laws — and maintaining unimpaired our 
civil and religious immunities. An active, living monarch, 
who enshrines himself in every heart as the father of his 
people, will call forth far more sensible manifestations of 
reverence and esteem, than all the Arthurs and Alfreds of 
a distant age united and one British Alfred will kindle 
emotions of enthusiastic regard, which cannot be excited by 
the entire roll of Roman emperors, who, in swaying the 
sceptre of a conquered world, may have conferred the great- 
est benefits on our own remote ancestry. He who is born and 
brought up in a den of the earth, will value his tiny lamp 
far beyond the sun, whose direct rays he never saw, and 
whose direct benefits he never experienced, — even though 
we should describe the luminary of day in the most brilliant 
colours, and endeavour to assure him, that the light of his 
own lamp has been perpetuated for ages from a flame ori- 
ginally derived from the sun. So it would be found with 
mankind in general in reference to the Creator. If no fea- 
ture in his character could be distinctly realized beyond an 
act of production in the depths of past time, gratitude to the 
most ordinary earthly benefactor would speedily overshadow, 
or wholly extinguish all remembrance of a mere Creator, — a 
Creator, who had no moral attributes that could render him 
a moral governor, and the object of moral sentiment, — a 
Creator, whose natural attributes were speedily withdrawn 
from the control and superintendence of the universe ! 



63 



To present a people with such a being as their supreme 
object of worship, were tantamount to robbing them of a god 
altogether. But the notices of some superior and invisible 
power are so universal and instinctive, as to prove that they 
have a firm root and foundation in our common nature. 
There must, then, be a god, whether true or false, for the 
outletting of tendencies which are inseparable from huma- 
nity. The profession of belief in a god, merely to escape 
from the imputation of atheism, cannot long be the profes- 
sion of a whole people. And since it is impossible that a 
frigid passionless abstraction like Brahm can ever be the 
god of the populace, who need wonder that gods should be 
demanded by the cravings of their spiritual nature, endowed 
at least with moral attributes, however perverted in their 
exercise ? 

In the delineation of Brahm, what a conception is pre- 
sented to us of the nature, attributes, and felicity of the 
Supreme Being ! Yet it is the highest that has been at- 
tained by reason in the East, when unfavoured by the light 
of revelation ;— the reason not of one man, but of thousands ; 
—thousands, not of ignorant savages, but of proud philoso- 
phers, many of whom have been endowed with intellects as 
subtile and acute as any ever bestowed upon the children 
of men ;— intellects not confined to one unhappy age of pecu- 
liar mental inertness, but whetted and uninterruptedly 
exercised through successive ages during the long period of 
three thousand years ! What an emphatic comment on 
the declaration of the apostle,— that " the world by wisdom 
knew not God;" but, "professing themselves to be wise, 
they became fools?" In the bloody and brutal rites of the 
popular idolatry, there may be something more calculated 
to harrow the feelings and summon forth the active sympa- 
thies in behalf of its deluded votaries. But to calm con- 
templative spirits, what spectacle can appear more affecting 
than that of thousands systematically engaged, age after age, 
in stultifying superior intellects, which, if properly cultivat- 
ed and directed, might render them discoverers in art and 
science,— the benefactors of the human race, and their guides 



64 



to immortality 2 What more affecting than to behold thou- 
sands intensely occupied in the investigation of the noblest of 
truths, and only accumulating heaps of the vilest error! — 
strenuously attempting to soar to the heights of true wis- 
dom, and only plunging the deeper into the abyss of mon- 
strous folly !— laboriously exercising the acutest reason, 
only to demonstrate how perversely unreasonable man may 
become, when wholly left to his own unaided efforts ! Verily, 
man, in the pride of his heart, may strive to be wise without 
God ; and in the confidence of his own wisdom, he may aim 
at building for himself an habitation on high among the 
clefts of a towering fancy ;_saying, who shall bring me down 
to the ground ? " Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and 
though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring 
thee down, saith the Lord." 

But, to return to our more immediate theme, the ques- 
tion now recurs, how came the universe, — this universe of 
visible external forms and invisible cognitive existences, — 
which at first existed as an ideal form or image in the 
divine mind : — how came it to be called forth into actual 
manifestation? This is a result which, in words, is con- 
stantly ascribed to the Divine volition, — to the forth-putting 
of omnipotent energy. Wherein then does this manifesta- 
tion of the universe really consist ? Is it a creation of ma- 
terial substance out of nothing ? Or, is it an organization 
of pre-existent matter into every variety of visible form? 
It is neither the one nor the other. The description already 
given of Brahm, which is that of the sound interpreters of 
the Vedas, precludes the possibility of the latter supposi- 
tion. The former has never found a place in any exposition 
of the system of Hinduism. 

It has been remarked by Coleridge, that extremes appear 
to generate each other ; but that, if we look steadily, there 
will most often be found some common error that produces 
both, as its positive and negative poles. The difficulties at- 
tending a system of pure materialism, or that which would 



65 



deduce all phenomena, intellectual and moral as well as 
physical, from rude unformed matter alone, might be said 
to drive men to the opposite extreme of spiritualism. The 
difficulty of reconciling with the dictates of reason the no- 
tion of the origin of material substance from a source purely 
spiritual might, in turn, be said to drive men into the oppo- 
site extreme of materialism. In the case of the Hindus, 
the common error, which in the orthodox and heterodox 
schools has produced both of these extremes, as its positive 
and negative poles, has been the constant and universal 
belief in the maxim " ex nihilo nihil fit"— of nothing, nothing 
comes. Of all maxims, this seems the only one that has 
ever passed unchallenged and unchallengeable in every 
school of Indian theology, — sound or heretical, orthodox Or 
unorthodox, — as if it were of all truisms the most undis- 
puted and indisputable. The testimony of the senses, the 
testimony of consciousness has been assailed ; — but never 
the validity of this maxim. 

The mean between total materialism and total spiri- 
tualism has been the maintenance, of two primary, absolute, 
infinite, independent, eternal principles, — one active, the 
other passive,— spirit and matter,— essentially different 
in essence, and irreconcileably opposed to each other. This 
has been designated the dualistic system, to distinguish it 
from the adualistic, or that which pronounces the all (to km) 
to be the one (to h) sole existing essence, — either all spirit, or, 
all matter; — and from that intermediate theory which regards 
matter and spirit as mysteriously comprehended in one great 
universal whole, — either intermingled in an undistinguish- 
able mass, whence, by the energy of the inhering, active, 
spiritual principle, matter gradually rises into form and 
beauty, — or simply united, though intimately inseparably 
and eternally, in the form of an animated being,— 

" Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 

Now the dualistic system, as well as the intermediate 
theory, the orthodox Hindus uniformly reject. They equally 
repudiate every scheme of pure materialism; while they 



66 



scout the notion of a creation out of nothing. All this they 
profess to do, not so much on principles of human reason- 
ing, as on the authority of revelation. What, then, it 
may be asked, is, in their view, the revealed scheme of the 
origin and manifestation of the universe ? After the state- 
ments now made, what can it be supposed to be, unless an 
adualistic scheme, founded on a basis purely spiritual \— 
a scheme which acknowledges spirit, as the one sole exist- 
ing essence ? Such, in point of fact, is declared to be the 
scheme propounded in the Yedas and other sacred writ- 
ings. But these writings have been variously interpreted ; 
hence the origin of diverse systems. Of these, it will suit 
our limited design to glance at the four leading ones, which 
are essentially marked and distinct ; and which constitute 
so many trunks whence shoot out numberless subordinate 
branches, varying in minute details, and in the specific ap- 
plication of general principles. There is first, what may be 
termed spiritual pantheism, properly so called. — Secondly, 
a combination of spiritualism and idealism, which from 
want of a better term, we may designate the psycho-ideal 
system. — Thirdly, a combination of spiritualism with a pe- 
culiar modification of spirit, which modification, for the sake 
of distinction, may, however improperly, be denominated, 
material, — this we may characterize as the psycho-material 
system.— Fourthly, a combination of the latter with the po- 
pular mythology. Of these systems, the two former alto- 
gether deny, while the two latter admit in a certain qualified 
sense, the real existence of an external material universe. 

According to the two former, all seemingly external things 
are merely illusory appearances. Such denegation of the 
existence of sensible objects is not new in the annals of 
philosophy. In the classic ages of Greece and Rome, Par- 
menides was accused of " having taken away fire and water, 
the precipice and the city,— that is, of having reduced all 
things in nature to the delirious and spectral phantasms of 
the sick." In modern times, Berkeley laboured to expose 
the fallacy of " the opinion strangely prevailing among 
men, that houses, mountains, rivers, &c, in a word, all 



67 



sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct 
from their being perceived by the understanding ! " These, 
however, were only the whimsies and the reveries of fallible 
men. It remained for the sages of Hindustan to announce 
to us, on the authority of a divine revelation, that all out- 
ward objective causes or antecedents of sensation and per- 
ception — the symphonies of sound, and the fragrancy of 
sweet odour, hill and dale, lake and river, waving forest 
and flowery mead,— that all, all are seeming and unreal, as 
the phantasmagoria of the wildest dream ! 

When all things have been thus pronounced unsubstantial 
and illusive, it might, as has been remarked, seem futile if 
not grossly irrational, to pretend to institute inquiries into 
their causes and origin ;— the causes and origin of what is be- 
lieved to have no actual existence ! To this, however, it has 
been replied, that having " once admitted that all which lies 
within the circuit of our experience is mere appearance, it 
then is both natural to, and compatible with, reason, to 
search after the ground and principles of this appearance ; 
in order to know why this appearance displays itself to us at 
all times in such orderly succession, according to such laws 
and with such properties. ,, Hence if, on the supposition 
that all appearances are illusory, it be no proof of insanity to 
inquire into the cause of such illusion; it has been contended 
that there is nothing incongruous on the part of the Hindu 
theologian, when he professes to announce to us what the 
cause really is ;— and that too, on divine authority ! 

What, then, is the divinely revealed cause of the mani- 
festation of this illusive universe ? 

According to the first system, or that of purely spiritual 
Pantheism, when Brahm, the sole existing essence or spirit, 
awoke, and the ideal form of the universe was conceived in 
: his mind, and the volition for its manifestation was put forth 
in these words, " Let me become many," — then it was that 
his energy was exerted in causing himself to assume the 
apparent reality of all those multitudinous existences and 



68 

forms which constitute at once the souls of men, and the 
objects of materialism. All these seemingly separate entities 
are thus so many manifestations of the divine essence it- 
self,— so many illusive forms assumed in consequence of a 
peculiar illusory exertion of the divine energy. The soul 
of man, the subject of illusive sensations and perceptions, 
is thus not a part of the Supreme Spirit; but a posi- 
tive manifestation of the Supreme Spirit itself — though 
when manifested as a human soul, it is under the influence 
of illusion, and conceives itself to be really distinct from 
God. Every outward object is in like manner only a differ- 
ent manifestation of the Divine essence. The multiplicity 
of subjective entities, and objective forms, militates .not 
against the truth of revelation. What are called finite 
beings can only be present in one place, and assume but 
one character, at one and the same moment of time ; still, 
even they could appear successively, under a prodigious va- 
riety of disguises. It is the prerogative of the infinite Brahm 
to assume at once and simultaneously a boundless variety 
of disguises,— at one and the same moment of time, to mani- 
fest himself under a countless diversity of seeming, but 
unreal existences,— active and passive, sensitive and insen- 
sate, percipient and perceived. 

Manifesting himself in so many shapes, the Supreme 
Brahm apparently assumes form ; though he is absolutely 
amorphous,— as sunshine or moonlight, blazing on a clear 
surface, may appear straight, crooked, or round, ac- 
cording to the object reflected. Presenting himself under 
so many modifications of being, he becomes apparently 
endued with quality ; though absolutely without any,— as 
the clear crystal, seemingly coloured by the red blossom of 
a hibiscus, is not the less really pellucid. Multiplying him- 
self so endlessly, he is apparently manifold ; though wholly 
without any multiplicity,— as the sun or any other luminary 
may, by reflection from a thousand mirrors, be seemingly 
multiplied into a thousand suns or luminaries, though all 
the while single. Assuming so many disguises, his nature 
might appear to change, though in itself unchangeable,- 



69 



the same liquid may, without mutation of essence, exist as 
colourless water, or white froth, or sparkling bubbles, 
or invisible vapour, or variegated clouds, or stony hail, or 
fleecy snow, or pearly hoar frost. 

In this way, the infinitely varied and multiform universe 
is nothing more than an infinitely varied though illusory 
manifestation of the essence of the Supreme Brahm.— It is 
Brahm,— illusively assuming the disguise of all finite exist- 
ences, and appearing to the human soul— which is itself but 
one of the peculiar manifestations of his own essence — diver- 
sified into a countless variety of fallacious individualities- 
spread out boundlessly through the immeasurable fields of 
space— and rolling on endlessly through the interminable 
mutations of time. 



According to the second or psycho-ideal system,— when 
Brahm awoke, and willed the manifestation of the universe, 
it didnot instantly appear, as when Jehovah said, " Let there 
be light and there was light." No ; his own active volition, 
exerted will, or omnipotent energy (Shakti) first of all be- 
came separated from his essence. When thus, in some in- 
effable manner, disjoined,— it is conceived to be invested with 
a species of personality, and endowed with the capability of 
exerting an independent agency. But how to describe a 
personified energy, existing and acting altogether apart 
from that essence whose energy it is, seems to have ex- 
hausted the ingenuity of Hindu metaphysicians. It is, say 
they, neither true nor false ; neither real nor unreal. It is 
not true or real ; because it has no separate essence of its 
own ;— for there exists no essence dependent or independent 
except that of Brahm. It is not false or unreal ; because it 
does exist and operate independently, as the power or energy 
of Brahm. Hence the remark of Sir G. Haughton, that it 
cannot be said « to be any thing essential, but it is some- 
thing actual r a something certainly, " that never before 
entered the head of any other than a Hindu philosopher ; 
and which, for want of a better term, we must call an acti 



70 



ality ; that is, something possessing potentiality, but desti- 
tute of essentiality" 

The moment its energy is thus separated from the divine 
essence, it begins to act. Us first action is exerted in some 
mysterious and indescribable manner on undivided portions 
of the essence of Brahm. Each of these portions is sub- 
jected to such ignorance of its real nature, as to originate 
in it the conception and belief of its separate and distinct 
individuality. It would seem as if, from Brahm,— viewed as 
the universal spirit awakened into a consciousness of his 
own existence,— his newly acquired consciousness had been 
transferred and concentrated on apparently isolated, yet 
really undivided parts of his own essence. Each of these 
apparently isolated yet undivided parts, on which such ig- 
norance has been superinduced that it ceases to recognise 
itself as any longer identical with the Supreme Brahm, and 
is actually brought to believe in its own separate personal- 
ity, is none other than some human or other soul. Now, 
this peculiar operation of the divine energy, is often styled 
" Avidya," ignorance, or rather the source or producent of 
ignorance. In this view of the subject, the soul is not a 
manifestation of the universal spirit, regarded as an undi- 
vided whole, but an undivided part of it ; that is, a part 
not cut off, or discerpted from the divine substance. The 
part may be diffused or extended ; still it is a diffusion or 
extension of the divine essence, without any separation or 
division. The second grand operation of the divine energy 
is, to excite in the human soul, now immersed in ignorance 
of its real nature and origin, all those instincts and motions 
which might be conceived to exist without a specific reference 
to aught external as their exciting cause ; as well as to exhi- 
bit all the endless variety of phenomena connected with sen- 
sation or perception ;— all the phenomena that are usually 
supposed to be extrinsic to the soul itself all the pheno- 
mena that constitute what has been termed the material, 
as contradistinguished from the spiritual universe. 

These phenomena, however, are not real, but illusive. 
They are like apparitions, that is, appearances, and merely ap- 



71 



pearances. Hence the divine power which has been separated 
from Brahm, and which, after he has lapsed into slumber, 
is continually employed in raising, exhibiting, and varying 

these appearances, — in all their composition and divisions, 

their changes and successions, — their relations and depen- 
dences ;~this divine power so employed, is emphatically 
styled MAYA, that is, ILLUSION; or rather the actuating 
principle or efficient cause of illusion ; — the illusory energy. 
In this respect, it has been remarked to bear some resem- 
blance to the noumenon, that is, the cause of the phenomena, 
in the philosophy of Kant. 

' Look,' may the expounders of Hindu theology say, 1 4 look 
at the glittering stream : what do you behold therein V I be- 
hold, you reply, the sun pouring his rays of effulgent glory 
on a gladdened world. ' Turn your eyes to that desert of 
sand : what do you discern V A shining expanse of living 
water. 4 When shut up in a dark cave which admits light 
only through one narrow cleft or crevice : what do you wit- 
ness on the opposite wall V Shapes and forms of various crea- 
tures animate and inanimate. 4 But is it really a luminary 
of material fire that you behold in the stream ; or a reservoir 
of the aqueous element in the desert ; or solid substantial 
figures in the cave V No ; they are all of them illusive ap- 
pearances. They are all, and all alike, mere images or sha- 
dows! 4 Well then/ say the Hindus, ' such and none other are 
all the phenomena of the supposed external universe. They 
are all illusive appearances — all unsubstantial images or 
shadows. To suppose them to be realities is the grossest 
possible mistake.' 

Aye, you reply, but the image in the stream, the mirage 
in the desert, the symmetrical figure in the cave, though 
unreal themselves, do irresistibly suggest the existence of 
counterpart realities. They demand and claim the exist- 
ence somewhere of material substances for their antitypes. 
Nay, responds the Hindu, what you call the correspond- 
ing reality or antitype, is itself a mere image, a shadow, an 
unsubstantial visionary form. If you will have it, that an 
acknowledged resemblance or likeness is the image or sha- 



dow or reflection of something else,— seeing that that some- 
thing else is itself an illusive appearance,— it must be the 
image of an image, the shadow of a shade, the reflection of 
a reflection. For, know that it is Maya that delusively ex- 
hibits all the diversified appearances which compose what is 
ordinarily called the visible external universe. These have 
no exterior material basis or substantive form, neither have 
they any interior spiritual basis or substratum, either in the 
Universal Soul, or in the human soul before which they are dis- 
played. In both these respects, they differ essentially from 
the subtile types or models of all things which Plato supposed 
to exist in the divine mind from all eternity ; — and to which 
he gave the name of " ideas, or intelligible forms,"" because ap- 
prehended solely by the intellect. These Platonic ideas are 
not mere conceptions. They are real immutable beings, sub- 
sisting in the divine mind as their proper seat. They are 
unchangeable patterns or exemplars, which, by the power of 
God, issue forth from the fountain of his own essence ; — and, 
becoming united with matter previously without any form, 
they impress their own form upon it, and so render visible 
and perceptible the whole range of individual sensible ob- 
jects presented to us in the external universe. These forms, 
thus impressed on contingent matter, are exact copies of 
those that are invariable. But sensible things are perpe- 
tually changing. Their forms, consequently, cannot be the 
proper objects of contemplation and science to the enlight- 
ened and purified intellect. Hence, says Plato, they are 
the ideas, or intelligible forms, eternally and immutably 
subsisting in the divine mind, which alone can be the real 
objects contemplated by the expanded reason of man. 

Unlike, too, the " ideas" of Malabranche ; which, though 
contained only in the one great Omnipresent Mind, and per- 
ceived by other spirits therein, had yet corresponding external 
objects : — unlike the " sensible species" or phantasms, or 
shadowy films of Aristotle, which, though transformed by the 
active and passive intellect into intelligible species fit to be the 
objects of the understanding, were yet only resemblances or 
pictures of outward substances : — unlike the " ideas" of 



73 



Berkeley, which, though representing no material forms, 
were not mere states of the individual mind, but separate 
spiritual entities, wholly independent of it, and imperishable, 
— capable of existing in finite minds, but reposing chiefly on 
the bosom of the Infinite unlike any, or all of these, the 
" ideas" or imagesof the Hindu theology float in utter vacancy, 
—challenging no separate or independent existence. They 
are mere illusive appearances presented by Maya,— having no 
" species" in the human intellect; no " substantial exemplars" 
in an external world ; no " intelligible forms " in the divine 
mind for their antitypes. Neither do they depend in any 
degree for their origin on any power or faculty of the soul 
itself. They spring from no interior act of the soul ; no 
more than the shadow in water is produced by an active 
power resident in the water. If you could suppose 
the water percipient, it would perceive the shadow in 
its own bosom, though wholly passive in the manifestation 
thereof; so, of the percipient soul. It does not originate 
any of the illusive appearances that flit before it. It is only 
the passive recipient as well as percipient of them. In 
your ignorance, you conclude that an image or shadow 
necessarily presupposes some counterpart substantial form. 
But know that it is the prerogative of Maya, the divine 
energy, to produce images and shadows without any corres- 
ponding reality,— to produce and exhibit, for example, the 
image of a sun, or the shadow of a tree, in the bosom of a 
limpid stream, though there be no luminary in the firma- 
ment, no tree on the verdant bank. And thus it is that 
Maya does produce images and forms, and exhibits them to 
the soul as before a mirror, though there be no counterpart 
realities. It is from the habit generated by ignorance that 
you talk of sensations and perceptions in the soul, as if 
these necessarily implied the existence of external objects 
as their exciting causes. 

It is true, say the Hindu theologians, that so long as 
the power of Maya is exerted, the soul is deceived into the 
belief of its own distinct individuality, as well as of the real 
existence of material phenomena. In other words, the soul,— 



74 



in consequence of the twofold operation of Maya, first, in 
subjecting it to ignorance of its real nature and origin, and 
secondly, in exposing it to illusive sensations and percep- 
tions—cannot help being impressed with a conviction of its 
own separate identity, and the independent existence of ex- 
ternal forms. And so long as this double belief, the com- 
pound result of ignorance and delusion, continues ;— so long 
must the soul act, " not according to its essential proper 
nature, but according to the unavoidable influences of the 
ignorance and illusive appearances to which it hath been ex- 
posed or, in the words of the Shastra, " so long must it 
be liable to virtue and vice, to anger and hate, and other 
passions and sensations,— to birth and death, and all the 
varied changes and miseries of this mortal state." 

The preceding views are stoutly upheld by numbers, as 
being plainly inculcated in numerous passages of the Vedas 
and other sacredwritings. They are supported by the racking, 
bending, spiritualizing, and allegorizing of many passages 
more. And even when the text may seem in no degree to 
admit of such interpretation, there is no such emphatic preci- 
sion in the meaning and application of words as to throw an 
insuperable bar in the way of inventive ingenuity. Of these 
views, isolated fragments descend and permeate the mass 
of society. But, as a whole, they are, and must ever be, 
limited to those classes who can afford to give full license to the 
mystical contemplative spirit which is more affected by " the 
imagery which is floating before its fancy, than by the ob- 
jects which surround it, — which mistakes its own dreams 
for realities, and realities for dreams." Even the great 
majority of the learned in the orthodox schools, require a 
system more level to ordinary comprehension,— and offering 
less violence to the evidence of sense and consciousness. 
Hence the admission that the existence of matter is not 
an illusion like the imagery of a fitful dream, but a sober 
reality. Still, however, maintaining that there is but one 
real and independent essence in the universe, which is 



75 



Brahm,— they insist that what is usually called matter, can 
have no distinct, separate, or independent essence, — that it 
is only a peculiar transformation, expansion, or modification of 
I spirit. 

This third view, which we have designated psycho-mate- 
rial, has been spread out into a regular system. It has pre- 
cisely the same substratum as the views already noticed. 
They all diverge from a common centre. That common centre 
is Brahm. His proper modality, or mode of being, is his 
abstract state denominated nirgun, that is, without qualities. 
Though this be a state of being utterly inconceivable, and, to 
our apprehension, nothing ; it is not absolute nothingness. 
For, when he awakes, he proves himself to be potentially all 
things. He then passes from the abstract state of nirgun 
into the concrete state of sagun, that is, endowed with qua- 
lities. All those active and intelligent powers which were 
united and absorbed, or annihilated in the one simple ab- 
solute unity, — Brahm, — now spring forth into being when he 
exchanges his proper eternal state of rest for his transitory 
state of action. Now his perfection consists in absolute 

\ quiescence, as well as an absolute relinquishment of all qualities 
and attributes. When, therefore, Brahm awakes and be- 
comes conscious of his own existence, and is invested with 
qualities and attributes, a decided change has of necessity 

j momentarily taken place in his essence. But a decided 
change from a state of absolute perfection cannot be for the 

| better ; it must be for the worse. Hence, must this tempor- 
ary self-induced hypostasis, or condition of being, be re- 
garded as possessing imperfection of some kind ; — while it 
cannot fail to communicate more or less of its superinduced 
properties to all that may proceed from it. 

When existing in this temporary imperfect state of sa- 
gun, Brahm wills to manifest the universe. For this pur- 
pose he puts forth his omnipotent energy, which is variously 
styled in the different systems now under review. He puts 
forth his energy, for what ? For the effecting of a creation 
out of nothing ? No : says one of the Shastras, but to 
" produce from his own divine substance, a multiform uni- 



76 



verse t* By the spontaneous exertion of this energy, he 
sends forth from his own divine substance, a countless host 
of essences— like innumerable sparks issuing from the blaz- 
ing fire, or myriads of rays from the resplendent sun. 
These detached portions of Brahm, these separated divine 
essences, soon become individuated spirits; destined in time to 
occupy different forms prepared for their reception,— whether 
these be fixed or moveable, animate or inanimate,— forms of 
gods or of men,— forms of animal, vegetable, or mineral ex- 
istences. 

Having been separated from Brahm in his imperfect state 
of sagun, they carry along with them a share of those prin- 
ciples, qualities, and attributes that characterize that state ; 
though predominating in very different degrees and propor- 
tions, either according to their respective capacities, or the 
retributive awards of an eternal ordination. Amongst others 
it is specially noted that, as Brahm at that time had awaken- 
ed into a consciousness of his own existence, there does 
inhere in each separated soul a notion or conviction of its 
own distinct independent individual existence. Labouring 
under this delusive notion or conviction, the soul has lost 
the knowledge of its own proper nature, its divine origin 
and ultimate destiny. It ignorantly regards itself as an 
inferior entity, instead of knowing itself to be what it truly 
is, a consubstantial, though it may be, an infinitesimally mi- 
nute portion of one great whole, or universal spirit. 

Each individual soul being thus a portion of Brahm, even 
as a spark is of fire, it is again and again declared that the 
relation between them is not that of " master and servant, 
ruler and ruled ; but that of whole and part." The soul is 
pronounced to be eternal a parte ante : — in itself, it has had 
no beginning, no birth ; though its separate individuality 
originated in time. It is eternal a parte post : — it will have 
no end, no death ; though its separate individuality will ter- 
minate in time. Its manifestation in time is not a crea- 
tion ; it is an effluence from the eternal fount of spirit. Its 
disappearance from the stage of time is not an extinction 
of essence, a reduction to nonentity ; it is only a refluence 



.1 



77 



into its original source. As an emanation from the supreme 
eternal spirit, it is from everlasting to everlasting. Neither 
can it be said to be of finite dimensions ; on the contrary, 
says the sacred oracle, " being identified with the Supreme 
Brahm, it participates in his infinity." 

t However revolting, or worse than revolting, this descrip- 
tion of the severing of the substance of Deity, it still involves 
the production of spirit from spirit. But how, from a Be- 
ing so purely spiritual and uncompounded, could material 
substances, capable of composition, division, and dissolution 
originate ? From a spiritual essence, gross matter could not, 
it is conceded, directly and immediately proceed. What could 
not, however, arise directly and immediately, might, it is sup- 
posed, mediately and ultimately emerge, through a process of 
successive evolution and expansion ;— portions of one or more 
of the momentarily assumed qualities of Brahm, variously 
combined and modified, being imparted to all that emanates, 
mediately or immediately, from his substance. The series of 
successive unfoldings or evolutions, is as follows :— 

> B y tne energy of Brahm, there proceeds or emanes from 
his essence, the intellectual principle, or entire mass of in- 
tellect the seat of intelligence, thought, reason, reflection, 
and all similar functions ; the most subtile of all existences 
next to that of pure spirit ; the source of all future indivi- 
dual intellects ; the fount and origin of the emanation imme- 
diately succeeding. 

From the intellectual principle there is evolved or de- 
veloped the conscious principle, or entire mass of con- 
sciousness ; the seat of " selfish conviction, or the belief 
that, in perception or meditation, < I ' am concerned ; that 
the objects of sense concern me ; in short, that ' I am ' or 
exist;" the source of all future individual consciousnesses ; 
the fount and origin of subsequent emanation, 
i From the conscious principle, there issue forth two dis- 
tinct classes of being. 

The first class consists of the five subtile particles, rudi- 
ments, or atoms, denominated tanmatra ; the invisible archi- 
types of the visible elements ; evolved successively, one from 



78 



the other, in the inverse order of their density. " The mi- 
nute spring from the gross, and from the gross the grosser ; " 
—the etherial atom direct from the principle of conscious- 
ness ; the aerial from the etherial; the igneous from the 
aerial ; the aqueous from the igneous ; and, last of all, the 
terrene from the aqueous. These atoms may be perceived 
by superior or disembodied spirits, but cannot be appre- 
hended by the grosser senses of mankind. 

In passing, it may be noted that the existence of an 
etherial element has been alternately asserted and denied in 
the schools of Western philosophy. Since the origin of ex- 
perimental and inductive science, it has been banished, from 
want of evidence as to its reality of being. Of late, how- 
ever, observations on the motions of a celebrated comet, and 
deductions therefrom, have revived the doctrine of a fifth 
or etherial element beyond our atmosphere, filling up the 
void of space. The Hindus have invariably asserted its ex- 
istence ;— and in all their systems, it has ever occupied a pro- 
minent position ! 

Direct from the conscious principle, though second to 
the elementary atoms in the order of developement, pro- 
ceed the eleven organs of sense and action ; and according to 
some, the five vital breaths. The eleven organs are ;— the 
five instruments of sensation, the eye, the ear, &c. ;— the 
five instruments of action, the hands, the feet, &c. ;— and the 
internal organ or mind, which serve " both for sense and 
action, being an organ by affinity;'— a sort of demi-corpo- 
real organ, which, receiving the images of external things 
through the senses, separates, subtilizes, and polishes these, 
rendering them transparent and fit to be presented for 
the contemplation of intellect. The vital breaths are ;— 
respiration, inspiration, pulsation, expiration, deglutition. 
By the ten external organs of sense and action are not 
meant the visible corporeal organs ; for these are framed out 
of gross matter, which as yet exists not. No! they are 
rather subtile essences, powers, or faculties, whose seat is in 
the corporeal organs. They are finite and very minute,— 
not, however, so minute as the elementary atoms, since they 



79 



are secondarily or posteriorly to these atoms evolved ; nor 
yet so gross as the coarser elements, since these have not 
yet been compounded. 

These eleven organs, with the two antecedent principles 
of intellect and consciousness, when harmoniously disposed, 

constitute to the soul thirteen instruments of knowledge, 

" three internal, and ten external, likened to three warders 
and ten gates/ 1 " An external sense perceives, the internal 
one examines ; consciousness makes the selfish application ; 
intellect judges and resolves ; an external organ executes." 
That there are myriads of senses before there is a sentient 
nature!— myriads of organs before there is one organic 
form ! — myriads of vital breaths before there is one animated 
being in existence .'—all this is nothing in the imagination of 
a Hindu ! These are waiting in readiness for future appro- 
priation. 

Last of all, from the five immensely attenuated particles 
or atoms that emaned from consciousness, arise by composi- 
tion the five gross visible elements which compose the ma- 
terial universe, and are to man the objects of sensation and 
perception. These are successively formed in the same order 
of developement as the invisible rudimental particles which 
are their architypes. For example, from a combination of 
one-half of the etherial atom, and an eighth part of each of 
the other atoms, — viz., the aerial, igneous, aqueous, and ter- 
rene,— first arises the etherial element. From a combina- 
tion of one-half of the aerial atom, and an eighth part of 
each of the rest, is formed the circumambient air or atmos- 
phere. From combinations of a similar kind, spring the 
remaining three elements, of fire, water, and earth. These 
elements are endowed with various properties. Ether has 
" the property of audibleness ; being the vehicle of sound." 
Air is " endued with the properties of audibleness and tan- 
gibility ; being sensible to hearing and touch." Fire is 
" invested with the properties of audibleness, tangibility, 
and colour ; being sensible to hearing, touch, and sight." 
Water " possesses the properties of audibleness, tangibility, 
colour, and savour ; being sensible to hearing, touch, sight, 



80 



and taste:' Earth " unites the properties of audibleness, 
tangibility, colour, savour, and odour; being sensible to 
hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell." 

Thus originate, by successive evolution, all the princi- 
ples and elements which compose the moral and material 
universe. Brahm, the eternal fountain of all existence, by 
his own energy, separates from his own substance a countless 
number of spirits, or souls, destined in time to occupy forms 
terrestrial, celestial, and infernal. By the same energy 
he next sends forth an infinitely subtile emanation; or 
rather extends a portion of his substance into a new form 
of being, — a peculiar species of expansion or diffusion. This 
again contains the germ of a new emanation or expansion ; 
—and this of another still. That which is prior in the 
succession, is not merely the antecedent, but the imme- 
diate generating source of the next lower down in the de- 
scending scale. Each succeeding evolution or expansion 
in the onward series loses another and another por- 
tion of the transparent purity, which characterizes the 
original divine essence. The more distant from the foun- 
tain, the dimmer and denser, or less subtile or less perfect 
each emanation becomes. That which recedes farthest, is 
the terrene element. Its line of transmission along the 
evolving series being the longest, it has lost most of the 
essential and transcendent properties of pure spirit. Con- 
sequently, it is the darkest and grossest,— the most languid 
and sluggish of all emanations. Still, though dark and 
gross and sluggish, it has no separate, no independent 
essence of its own. It is the most remote emanation, or 
rather eduction from spirit. It is the last developement and 
modification of the substance of Brahm. All things thus 
evolved are conceived by many to be still mysteriously unit- 
ed to their original source, — as the radii of a circle to its 
centre ;— to be still mysteriously dependent upon it for con- 
tinued existence, through every variety of form and change, 
— as the rays of light upon the sun. 



J 



81 

But can it really be, that gross matter is held to be 
an educt from spirit ; and of the very essence and sub- 
stance of God? Is there no mistake arising from the 
figures and metaphors of oriental fancy? None whatever. 
In every variety and mode of speech, is it asserted, -that 
Brahm is at once the efficient and the material cause— that 
he is the being by whose efficient energy all things are 
evolved ; and that it is from his own spiritual substance they 
are evolved ; —that " the nature of cause and effect is the 
same "—that as a " piece of cloth does not essentially differ 
from the yarn of which it is made," so the visible universe 
does not differ in essence from Brahm, whence it emanated." 
The Shastras assure us, that "effect exists antecedently to the 
operation of cause,"— that what " exists not, can by no opera- 
tion of a cause be brought into existence;"— and hence, that, 
as " rice is in the husk before it is peeled;" as " milk is in the 
udder before it is drawn ; " as " oil is in sesamum before it is 
pressed ;" so all qualities and principles remain hidden and 
undisclosed in Brahm, till by his own spontaneous energy 
they are educed. Again, they tell us, that as <1 the lotus 
expands itself from pond to pond ;" as « plants spring from 
the earth ;" as " hair of the head grows from the body, so 
does the universe come from the unalterable." Once more, 
say they, look at the spider and his web. Of what does the' 
latter consist ? Is it not an expanded portion of the very 
substance of the spider's own body? And is it not by an 
exertion of the little insect's energy that it has been drawn 
or spun out ? So is the universe drawn, or spun out, or 
expanded by the energy of Brahm from his own substance. 

These gross analogies, it cannot be doubted,— though ad- 
duced in the sacred writings, merely as apt illustrations fit- 
ted to convey to the human mind some conception of divinely 
revealed facts,— were the real causes which suggested the re- 
vealed facts themselves ; and along with other analogies 
equally gross, were the real sources whence originated many 
of the leading parts of the theory of Hinduism. It must, 
however, be remembered that, in the present instance, they 
are not designed to identify the sources whence all these 



i 



82 



effects, already described, have sprung. It is not meant 
that,-because the spider, the earth, the body, whence cer- 
tain products arise, are solid elementary matter,— therefore, 
Brahm, whence the universe proceeds, is material too. No : 
the likeness is in the evolving process, not in the sources of 
evolution ; for the one source is spiritual, and the other ma- 
terial. The analogy is not between the nature of the antece- 
dents^ but between the modes in which the consequents arise. 
It is a parallelism or correspondence, not between things but 
sequences. It is a similarity or resemblance, not of substance 
or of qualities, but simply of relation or succession. It is the 
imperfection of language, which leads to the calling Brahm 
the material cause of the universe,— as if he were composed 
of gross matter. All that is meant is, that as, for example, 
the web really and truly issues from, and is an expanded 
portion of, the spider's body— so, really and truly does the 
universe, through a series of successive emanations, proceed 
from, and is an expanded portion of, the substance or essence 
of Brahm. Still, that essence or substance is essentially 
spiritual, not material. 

In fine, what the Jewish Cabbalists affirmed of their En- 
soph or Supreme Deity, seems to convey the very sentiments 
of a learned student of the Hindu Vedas, relative to Brahm, 
—namely, " that he contains all things within himself ; and 
that there is always the same quantity of existence whether 
the universe be in a created or uncreated" (rather manifested 
or unmanifested) " state. When it is in the latter, God is 
all ; when in the former, the Deity is just partially unfolded 
or evolved by various degrees of emanation, which consti- 
tute the several forms and orders of manifested nature." 
Still, all things are God. And when the energy of emana- 
tion ceases to operate, all orders of being return and are 
reunited to the fountain whence they sprung.— Then God 
alone is all again. 



Here we cannot help pausing to notice how thoroughly, in 
every scheme of Hinduism, the creature is confounded with 



83 



the Creator. The distinction between these is not merely 
lost :— it is utterly annihilated. Either " air is creator, or 
" all" is creature. Rather, " air is an eternal something, which 
is neither creator nor creature. How strikingly is the say- 
ing verified, that on this and every other fundamental point, 
the faith of the devout Christian conceives more justly, and 
comprehends more clearly, than all the fancy and all the 
reason of the most renowned philosopher ! Yes, the poorest 
and most illiterate peasant in the humblest hut of a Chris- 
tian land, may learn more of true and sublime theology from 
the first verse of the book of Genesis, than has ever been 
elaborated by all the intellects of all the wise men of all 
ages. " In the beginning Cod created the heavens and the 
earth." There is no ambiguity, no confusion here. All the 
pretences and cavillings, all the subtilties, repugnances, and 
vaunted demonstrations of proud but false philosophy are 
swept away. Without preface, without comment, without 
qualification, without reserve yea, without, so much as an 
apparent consciousness of the very possibility of a doubt ; 
—is the transcendent truth abruptly and summarily an- 
nounced in simple majesty of speech,— " In the beginning Cod 
created the heavens and the earth." Created ! Summoned 
out of nothing into being ! He spake, and it was done. He 
commanded, and all things stood fast. That which the wise 
men of this world imagined they had proved to be the im- 
possibility of impossibilities, is instantaneously achieved. 
The creative fiat of Omnipotence crossed at once the im- 
passable gulf, — bridged in a moment the measureless 
chasm, between the region of entity and nonentity, — be- 
tween the empty illimitable void, and a glorious universe 
replenished with myriads of worlds, and myriads of myriads 
of bright inhabitants ! 

In this brief but sublime representation, the creature is 
not only distinguished from the Creator; but between them 
is a distance wide as infinitude. And throughout the 
Bible the distinction is emphatically maintained. The 
Cod of the Bible is indeed omnipresent— fully, completely, 
undividedly, every where present— present alike in the in- 



8* 

most recesses of the heart, and in the deepest caverns of 
earth— present alike in the sunbeam, and in the darkening 
shade— present alike in the peopled heavens, and m the 
abysses of empty space. But, though present-essentially 
though mysteriously present,— through the boundless extent 
of His vast dominions, He is never, never confounded with 
aught that exists. All things do live, and move, and have 
their being in Him. By His omnipotence He created all; 
by His omniscience He guides all ;— yet is He essentially 
distinct from all, and independent of all. The Brahm of 
Hinduism is in all things, and is the things themselves. The 
Jehovah of the Bible is in all things, but is not the things 
themselves. The Brahm of Hinduism is every where, 
and is every thing. The Jehovah of the Bible is every 
where, but is not every thing. The Brahm of Hinduism is 
with all things, because all are only so many manifestations 
of his own substance. The Jehovah of the Bible is with 
all things, but wholly unmixed, uncompounded, unidentified 
with any. Jehovah alone can be called absolutely indepen- 
dent, absolutely omnipotent, absolutely supreme. By a 
word He created the universe out of nothing ; by a word 
He can reduce it to nothing again. 



All the constituents of every form of being having, by 
successive emanation or developement, been produced— the 
more learned usually satisfy themselves with declaring that 
the whole was subsequently arranged by the immediate power 
of Brahm, into different worlds, visible and invisible ; and into 
various orders of being, animate and inanimate, organized 
and unorganized. But this view is far too simple for the 
mass. And here it is that the fourth or popular system 
presents itself— or that which engrafts Mythology on Psycho- 
materialism— constituting what we have termed the Psych o 
material-mythologic system. 

The mythologic system is not one that exists independent- 
ly of all the rest. It presupposes one or other of them, as 
the alone substratum on which it could rest. It admits of 



85 



being engrafted on any one of them. It is, therefore, not 
a system to be substituted in their place, — it is rather 
a superaddition. It is altogether a grosser scheme, suit- 
ed to a ruder and grosser state of mind. Though based 
on one or other of the rest, the mass of the people are chiefly 
occupied with the mythologic superstructure, without much 
regard for the foundation. As the psycho-material sys- 
tem of pantheism is the one generally adopted in the ortho- 
dox schools, it is enough for our present purpose to show 
how the mythologic scheme unites itself with it, not merely 
in the way of juxtaposition, but of intimate incorporation 
or interpenetration. 

The mythologic scheme, equally with the rest, supposes 
the existence of the one only great, incomprehensible, and 
eternal spirit, — the sole existent, abstract, and impersonal 
essence — Brahm. Brahm, as in the other systems, is sup- 
posed to will the manifestation of the universe. But, here, 
in the popular or mythologic creed, starts into view a pecu- 
liarity that characterises all its departments, and furnishes 
the only principle of harmony to a vast variety of otherwise 
hopelessly discordant materials,— the only solution of jarring 
phenomena. The mind of man has, in all ages and climes, 
felt the difficulty of conceiving hoio spirit can exert energy at 
| all; and, more particularly, how it can directly operate upon 
matter. This difficulty was at the bottom of most of the theo- 
ries of the Grecian philosophers, respecting sensible species,8iiid 
other intermediate processes and phantasms ; and had its full 
share in leading to the adoption of the theory of the eternity 
of matter. In the mythologic system it is evidently assumed 
throughout, that spirit as such, unembodied spirit, cannot put 
forth energy ; cannot manifest power ; cannot exert itself to- 
i wards the production of matter; or directly operate upon mat- 
ter when produced. Even the Supreme Brahm himself could 
I not, by his mere volition, effect the manifestation of the visible 
universe ; or, if he could, such operation were wholly incom- 
patible with the imperturbable tranquillity of his nature. 
Seeing, then, that corporeal form is essential to the exertion 
" en ergy, in order that he may put forth his omnipotence, 



86 



BraHm must assume a form, or the semblance of a form. 
Under this assumed personal form, he drew forth, in some 
ineffable manner, from his own impersonal essence, three 
distinct beings, or hypostases, which speedily became in- 
vested with corporeal forms. This is the celebrated Hindu 
Triad— Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva ;— respecting whom, one 
of the sacred books declares, " that they were originally 
united in one essence, and from one essence were derived ;1 
and, another, " that the great one became distinctly known 
as three gods, being one person and three gods." 

These are the first created beings, as well as the highest, 
noblest, and most powerful. For what purpose were they 
created or rather drawn forth from the essence of the Su- 
preme Spirit I For the purpose of manifesting the energy 
of the Supreme in reference to the creation, (rather educ- 
tion and organization.) preservation, and destruction of the 
universe. It is the function of Brahma, the expander, to 
exert his productive and formative agency on something 
pre-existent, spiritual or material. It is the office of 
Vishnu, the permder, to pervade the universe, after it has 
been manifested, for the purpose of superintendence and 
preservation. It is the duty of Shiva, the destroyer, to 
exercise his destructive power in executing vengeance, and 
disorganizing the forms of animated being. Since, however, 
destruction may only imply mutation of form, not annihilation 
of substance, and is usually succeeded by a reproduction in 
some other form, Shiva is often represented as the god of 
renovation. Divine males having thus been brought upon 
the stage of action, another distinctive principle that per- 
vades the whole of Hindu mythology comes into view. 
Judging from the gross analogy of sense, the authors of 
the system could not conceive how even divine males could 
exist without helps meet being provided for them. Accord- 
ingly, the energy of Brahm is personified under a female 
form, and then multiplied into three distinct forms, with 
three distinct names. Under these three distinct forms and 
names, she becomes the consort of each of the members of 
the triad. As Saraswati, she is the spouse of Brahma, — the 



87 



protectress of arts and science, of learning and eloquence. 
As Lakshmi, she is the favourite wife of Vishnu, the god- 
dess of fertility and plenty. As Parvati, she is the constant 
companion of Shiva ; and, like her lord, is armed with de- 
structive energies. 

Since these were the only beings drawn forth directly by 
the Supreme Spirit himself, from his own essence, under an 
assumed corporeal form, they became the superior gods of 
mythology; to whom were intrusted the future arrangement 
and government of the universe, after Brahm sunk into his 
proper state of slumber. 

Though the three inferior gods, with their consorts, were 
coeval in their origin, it is clear from the nature of the case, 
that the work of production being antecedent to that of 
preservation or destruction, the peculiar functions of Brahma 
must be called into requisition before the exercise of the 
functions of any of the rest. 

First of all, how were the constituent elements of the 
universe produced \ According to Manu, it was Brahma, 
the creator, that drew forth from Brahm, the Supreme 
Spirit, intellect, consciousness, and all the other successively 
evolved principles. But whatever the agency may have 
been, whether Brahm's simple energy, or his energy personi- 
fied, or his energy in the form of Brahma, it is agreed that, 
from the substance of Brahm, all these principles were really 
educed. Here it is, then, that mythology thoroughly en- 
grafts itself on the psycho-material system. 

After having enumerated all the elementary principles, 
atoms, and qualities, successively evolved from Brahm, one 
of the sacred writings states that, " though each of these had 
I distinct powers, yet they existed separate and disunited, 
| without order or harmonious adaptation of parts; — that 
! until they were duly combined together, it was impossible 
to produce this universe, or animated beings;— and that 
therefore it was requisite to adopt other means than for- 
tuitous chance for giving them appropriate combination 
and symmetrical arrangement." 

How then were these primordial elements to be com- 



88 

bined, and symmetrically arranged ?— By the simple volition 
of the Omnipotent ? No : So sublime an act is alien to the 
faith, if not beyond the conception, of the authors of Hindu 
Mythology. They seem haunted at every step with the 
impossibility of conceiving how spirit could act directly on 
matter; and what they found it impossible to conceive, 
they were disposed to reject as incredible. Hence was their 
imagination ever tasked in devising intermediate agencies,— 
intermediate processes. Here were the germinant seeds or 
principles of all future being how were they to be com- 
bined and perfected in growth, beauty, and harmonious 
disposition of parts ? The Supreme Being, replies the Hindu 
Mythologist, produced a seed or egg, in which the elemen- 
tary principles might be deposited, and gradually nurtured 
into maturity. 

Are you startled at the strange conception \ Look around 
you, may the Hindu say, and tell me if almost all organized 
being is not produced from seed ? You have only to seize 
on this fact, and transfer the process by analogy to the 
formation of this great universe. Look, for example, to 
the seed of the wide-spreading banyan. You may know 
from experience, that, however wonderful and unaccount- 
able, it is not the less true, that the particles of this small 
seed do contain the embryo of the most magnificent of trees. 
Examine these particles which compose the seed. They are 
without apparent form or distinction of colour— without 
any distinguishable variety in texture or composition — and 
yet from them is destined to arise a stately trunk, with 
branches, and foliage, and blossoms, and fruit. Look again 
at that gorgeous creature, the peacock. It, too, has sprung 
from a seed or egg. Watch the growth of the egg. You 
may first observe it in the egg-organ, " under the form of 
a small yellow globe or sphere, frequently smaller than 
mustard seed then, in the egg tube, becoming enveloped 
with successive layers of a glutinous and calcareous sub- 
stance, furnished by appropriate secreting vessels ; — and last 
of all deposited in the nest, where, from this inert mass, 
operated on by the vivifying warmth of the mother, springs 



89 



forth a living creature — the most magnificent of birds. 
Who that had never read, seen, or heard of such a thing, 
could have conjectured the possibility of such a metamor- 
phosis? In gazing at the first egg ever presented to an 
observer, may the Hindu continue to ask, with a celebrated 
naturalist, " could imagination itself ever conjure up, even 
in the brightest moments of inspired genius, the idea of a 
peacock springing out of the shell \ Look at a single feather ; 
consider that its shining metallic barbs, its superlatively 
beautiful eye, and all the wonders it exhibits of iricliscent, 
rich, and changeable hues, according to the angle in which it 
lies to the light ; that its form, its solidity, its flexibility, its 
strength, its lightness, and all its wonders, had their origin 
in a little mucilage ! But, if a single feather be so wonder- 
ful a production, what are we to think of the entire bird ? 
And yet, the entire bird, in all its glory of dazzling colours, 
is the product of a little glairy colourless fluid contained in 
a capsule of chalk ! " 

Experience having thus exhibited to the Hindu observer 
realities more wonderful than imagination could have con- 
ceived, it required no great stretch of ingenuity on his part 
to transfer, by analogy, a process so fraught with wonders 
from the field of observation and experience, in order to 
account for the rise, progress, and perfecting of another 
formation beyond the field of observation and experience. 
But whatever may have originally suggested the singular 
idea,— or whether it may not have arisen from some con- 
fused corrupt tradition of the fact that, in the beginning, the 
Spirit of God brooded over the waters,-it is announced, as 
the Hindu verily believes on the authority of revelation, that 
Brahm resolved to produce a huge seed or egg. 

The producing of such an egg implies a new exercise of 
divine power. But even divine power, according to the 
mythologist, cannot be immediately exercised— directly mani- 
fested—by pure immaterial spirit. For action, corporeal 
form is absolutely indispensable. Hence it is that, for the 
production of the intended egg, Brahm is represented 
as having assumed a new and peculiar form ; and, in that 



90 



form, is usually named Purush, or the primeval male. His 
divine energy, already separated from his essence, is also 
supposed to be personified under a female form, Prakriti or 
Nature. On Purush and Prakriti was devolved the task of 
giving existence to the celebrated Mundane egg. Having 
once finished their task, these peculiar and specific manifes- 
tations of Brahm and his energy, seem to have evanished 
from the stage of action, to give way afterwards to other 
distinct manifestations for the accomplishment of purposes 
alike specific. 

All the primary atoms, qualities, and principles — the seeds 
of future worlds — that had been evolved from the substance 
of Brahm, were now collected together, and deposited in the 
newly produced egg. And into it, along with them, entered 
the self-existent himself, under the assumed form of Brahma; 
and there sat, vivifying, expanding, and combining the 
elements, a whole year of the creation — a thousand yugs 
— or four thousand three hundred millions of solar years ! 
During this amazing period, the wondrous egg floated " like 
a bubble on an abyss " of primeval waters— rather, perhaps, 
chaos of the grosser elements, in a state of fusion and 
commixtion, — increasing in size, and blazing refulgent as a 
thousand suns. At length, the Supreme, who dwelt therein, 
burst the shell of the stupendous egg, and issued forth under 
a new form, with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a 
thousand arms ! 

Along with him there sprang forth another form, huge 
and measureless ! What could that be ? All the elemen- 
tary principles having now been matured, and disposed into 
an endless variety of orderly collocations, and combined 
into one harmonious whole, they darted into visible mani- 
festation, under the form of the present glorious universe ; — a 
universe now finished and ready made, with its entire appa- 
ratus of earth, sun, moon, and stars ! What then is this 
multiform universe ? It is but an harmoniously arranged 
expansion of primordial principles and qualities. And 
whence are these \ — Educed or evolved from the divine 
substance of Brahm. Hence it is, that the universe is so 



91 



constantly spoken of, even by the mythologists, as a mani- 
fested form of Brahm himself, the supreme invisible spirit. 
Hence, too, under the notion that it is the manifesta- 
tion of a being who may assume every variety of corporeal 
form, is the universe often personified ; or described as if its 
different parts were only the different members of a person 
of prodigious magnitude, in human form. In reference to 
this more than gigantic being, viewed as a personification of 
the universe, it is declared that the hairs of his body are 
the plants and trees of the forest ; of his head, the clouds ; 
of his beard, the lightning ;—that his breath is the circling 
atmosphere ; his voice, the thunder ; his eyes, the sun and 
moon; his veins, the rivers ; his nails, the rocks ; his bones, 
the lofty mountains ! 

What, may it now be asked, is the divinely revealed ac- 
count of the constitution of the physical universe, as it 
sprung in perfected form from the Mundane egg ? 

It is often said to exist of three worlds — heaven above, 
earth below, and the interambient ether. In a minuter di- 
vision, it is usually partitioned into fourteen worlds ; seven 
inferior, or below the world which we inhabit ; and seven su- 
perior, consisting,— with the exception of our own, which is 
the first,— -of immense tracts of space, bestudded with glorious 
luminaries, and habitations of the gods ; — rising not unlike 
the rings of Saturn, one above the other; as so many concen- 
tric zones or belts of almost measureless extent. 

Of the seven inferior worlds which dip beneath our earth 
in a regularly descending series, it is needless to say more 
than that they are destined to be the abodes of all manner 
of wicked and loathsome creatures. 

Our own earth, the first of the ascending series of worlds, 
is declared to be " circular or flat, like the flower of the 
water-lily, in which the petals project beyond each other: 1 
Its habitable portion consists of seven circular islands or con- 
tinents, each surrounded by a different ocean. The central 
or metropolitan island, destined to be the abode of man, is 



named Jamba Dwip, around which rolls the sea of salt wa- 
ter ; next follows the second circular island, and around it 
the sea of sugar-cane juice ; then the third, and around it the 
sea of spirituous liquors ; then the fourth, and around it the 
sea of clarified butter ; then the fifth, and around it the 
sea of sour curds ; then the sixth, and around it the sea of 
milk ; then the seventh and last, and around it the sea of 
sweet water. Beyond this last ocean is an uninhabited coun- 
try of pure gold, so prodigious in extent that it equals all 
the islands with their accompanying oceans in magnitude. 
It is begirt with a bounding wall of stupendous mountains, 
which enclose within their bosom, realms of everlasting dark- 
ness. 

The central island, the destined habitation of the human 
race, is several hundred thousand miles in diameter; and the 
sea that surrounds it is of the same breadth. The second 
island is double the diameter of the first, and so is the sea 
that surrounds it. And each of the remaining islands and 
seas in succession, is double the breadth of its immediate pre- 
decessor. So that the diameter of the whole earth amounts 
to several hundred thousand millions of miles — occupying a 
portion of space of manifold larger dimensions than that which 
actually intervenes between the earth and the sun ! Yea, if 
our imagination could take the wings of the morning and 
dilate itself into a capacity for grasping what approximates 
the infinite ; and if it could enable us to form the concep- 
tion of a circular mass of solid matter, whose diameter ex- 
ceeded that of the orbit of Herschell, the most distant planet 
in our solar system, such a mass w T ould not equal in magni- 
tude the earth of the Hindu Mycologists ! 

In the midst of this almost immeasurable plain, from the 
very centre of Jamba Dwip, shoots up the highest of moun- 
tains, Su-Meru, to the height of several hundred thousand 
miles; in the form of an inverted pyramid; having its summit, 
which is two hundred times broader than the base, surmount- 
ed by three swelling cones, — the highest of these cones trans- 
piercing upper vacancy with three golden peaks, on which 
are situate the favourite residences of the sacred Triad. 



93 



At its base, like so many giant centinels, stand four lofty 
hills, on each of which grows a mangoe tree several thousand 
miles in height,— bearing fruit delicious as nectar, and of the 
enormous size of many hundred cubits. From these man- 
goes, as they fall, flows a mighty river of perfumed juice; so 
communicative of its sweetness, that those who partake of 
it, exhale the odour from their persons all around to the 
distance of many leagues. There also grow rose apple trees, 
whose fruit is " large as elephants; 1 ' and whose juice is so 
plentiful, as to form another mighty river, that converts the 
earth over which it passes, into purest gold ! 

Such is a brief notice of the geographical outline fur- 
nished by the sacred writings of the world on which we 
dwell. In turning to the other superior worlds, we obtain 
a glimpse of some of the revelations of Hindu astronomy. 

The second world in the ascending series, or that which 
immediately over-vaults the earth, is the region of space 
between us and the sun ; which is declared, on divine au- 
thority, to be distant only a few hundred thousand miles. 
The third in the upward ascent, is the region of space in- 
termediate between the sun and the pole star. Within this 
region are all the planetary and stellar mansions. The dis- 
tances of the principal heavenly luminaries are given with 
the utmost precision. The moon is placed beyond the sun 
as far as the sun is from the earth ! Next succeed at equal 
I distances from each other, and in the following order :— the 
. Stars, Mercury, (beyond the stars !) Venus, Mars, Jupiter, 
! Saturn, Ursa Major, and the Pole Star. The four remain- 
ing worlds (beyond the Pole Star) continue to rise, one above 
the other, at immense and increasing intervals. The entire 
circumference of the celestial space is then given with the 
utmost exactitude of numbers. 

; In a11 of these superior worlds, are framed heavenly man- 
sions, differing in glory,— destined to form the habitation of 
various orders of celestial spirits. In the seventh or highest, 
is the chief residence of Brahma— said by one of the divine 



94 



sages to be so glorious, that he could not describe it in two 
hundred years ; as it contains in a superior degree every thing 
which is precious, or beautiful, or magnificent in all the 
other heavens. What then must it be, when we consider 
the surpassing grandeur of some of these ! Glance, for ex- 
ample, at the heaven which is prepared in the third world, 
and intended for Indra, — head and king of the different 
ranks and degrees of subordinate deities. Its palaces are all 
of purest gold — so replenished with vessels of diamond, and 
columns and ornaments of jasper, and sapphire, and emerald, 
and all manner of precious stones, that it shines with a 
splendour exceeding the brightness of twelve thousand suns. 
Its streets are of the clearest crystal, fringed with fine 
gold. It is surrounded with forests abounding with all 
kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, whose sweet odours 
are diffused all around for hundreds of miles. It is bestudded 
with gardens and pools of water,— warm in winter, and cool 
in summer, — richly stored with fish, waterfowl, and lilies 
blue, red, and white, spreading out a hundred, or a thousand 
petals. Winds there are, but they are ever refreshing :— 
storms and tempests and sultry heats being unknown. 
Clouds there are, but they are light and fleecy, and fan- 
tastic canopies of glory. Thrones there are, which blaze like 
the corruscations of lightning, enough to dazzle any mortal 
vision. And warblings there are, of sweetest melody, — with 
all the inspiring harmonies of music and of song, among 
bowers that are ever fragrant and ever green. 

Such descriptions, however, are not like those of the Bible, 
chiefly figurative and emblematic ; designed faintly to repre- 
sent the glories of an abode which " eye hath not seen nor 
ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to 
conceive." No : they are all to be understood in strictest 
literality. In the heaven of Indra there are no objects of 
contemplation except those of external sense,— no gratifica- 
tions beyond those of carnal tastes and desires, appe- 
tites and passions. It is at best but a sort of terrestrial 
paradise, such as the heart of man may well conceive, — a 
paradise without aught of paradisaical innocence or purity. 



There, holiness and communion with God and love the bond 
of perfectness, all of which unite in constituting the ineffable 
bliss of the heaven of the Bible, are utterly unknown. 



The substantial fabrics of all worlds having now been 
framed and fitted up as the destined abodes of different or- 
ders of being, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, the question 
next arises, How or by whom were produced the varied or- 
ganized forms which these orders of being were designed to 
animate I Though hosts of subtle essences, or spirits, or 
souls, flowed forth from Brahm, all of these remain inactive 
till united to some form of materialism. From this necessity 
the gods themselves are not excepted. While the souls of 
men, and other inferior spirits, must be enclosed in taber- 
nacles fashioned out of the grosser elements ; the souls of 
the gods, and all other superior spirits, must be made to 
inhabit material forms, composed of one or other of the in- 
finitely attenuated and invisible rudimental atoms that 
spring direct from the principle of consciousness. 

Who, then, is the maker of these endlessly varied forms ? 
To Brahma, the first person of the triad, was the office, al- 
most exclusively, assigned. Hence is he styled the Creator. 
But creator he is not in the only proper and genuine sense 
of that term. In that lofty sense, even the Supreme Brahm 
is not a creator. Brahm and Brahma are both alike only 
producers, or educers, or, at the best, mere fabricators of 
pre-existent materials. Brahma, then, is in no sense Crea- 
tor, though, in a strictly literal sense, he may, like Grecian 
Jove, be truly designated " the father of gods and men." 

Interminable as are the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and 
extravagancies of the Hindu sacred writings, on no subject, 
perhaps, is the multiplicity of varying accounts and discre- 
pancies more astounding than on the present. Volumes 
would not suffice to retail them all. Brahma's first attempts 
at the production of the forms of animated being were as 
eminently unsuccessful as they were various. At one time, 
he is said to have performed a long and severe courseof ascetic 



96 



devotions to enable him to accomplish his wish, but in vain ; 
at another, inflamed with anger and passion at his repeated 
failures, he sat down and wept ; — and from the streaming 
tear-drops sprang into being, as his first-born, a progeny of 
ghosts and goblins of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, 
that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound 
meditation, different beings spring forth, one from his thumb, 
a second from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from 
his side, and others from different members of his body ; at 
another, he assumes sundry strange qualities to effectuate 
his purpose, or he multiplies himself into the forms of dif- 
ferent creatures, rational and irrational. But enough of 
such monstrous legends — legends which may well serve as a 
dark back-ground to exhibit and enhance the contrast pre- 
sented by the Mosaic record of the creation. For, what 
contrast or contrariety can possibly be greater than that 
which obtains between the painful, experimental, and often 
abortive, attempts of Brahma to produce the forms of ani- 
mated being, and the simple but sublime declaration of 
Jehovah \ — " Let us make man in our image," — viewed in 
conjunction with the words immediately added by the in- 
spired historian, " So Grod created man in his own image ; in 
the image of God created he him ; male and female created 
he them." — Or, again, with the equally irresistible command, 
" Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature 
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth, in the 
open firmament of heaven : Let the earth bring forth the 
living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and 
beast of the earth, after his kind — " and it teas so" 

As the result of all his toilsome labours and experiments 
there did proceed from Brahma, directly or indirectly, a 
countless progeny of animated beings that people the four- 
teen worlds which constitute the universe. 

The seven inferior worlds are plentifully stored with fierce 
giants, and savage hydras, and huge serpents, " pourtrayed 
in every monstrous figure which imagination can suggest, — 
with the dire and tremendous Sheshanaga for their king, 
" whose thousand heads are encompassed each with a crown 



97 

of starry gems; while his eyes gleam like blazing torches, 
and his garments are skirted with yellow flames ; and he 
bears aloft in his arms the holy shell, the radiated weapon, 
the mace of war, and the divine and immortal lotus." 

The worlds above this earth are peopled with gods and 
goddesses, demigods and genii,— -the sons and grandsons, 
daughters and grand-daughters, of Brahma and other su- 
perior deities. All the superior gods have separate hea- 
vens for themselves. The inferior deities dwell chiefly in 
the heaven of Indra, the god of the firmament. There they 
congregate to the number of three hundred and thirty mil- 
lions ! The gods are divided and subdivided into classes or 
hierarchies which vary through every conceivable gradation of 
rank and power. They are of all colours,— some black, some 
white, some red, some blue, and so through all the blend- 
ing shades of the rainbow. They exhibit all sorts of shape, 
size, and figure,— in forms wholly human or half human,— 
wholly brutal or variously compounded, like many-headed 
and many-bodied centaurs,— with four, or ten, or a hundred, 
or a thousand eyes, heads, and arms. They ride through 
the regions of space on all sorts of etherealized animals,— 
elephants, buffaloes, lions, deer, sheep, goats, peacocks, 
vultures, geese, serpents, and rats ! They hold forth in 
their multitudinous arms all manner of offensive and de- 
fensive weapons,— thunderbolts, scimitars, javelins, spears, 
clubs, bows, arrows, shields, flags, and shells ! They 
discharge all possible functions. There are gods of the 
heavens above, and of the earth below, and of the region un- 
der the earth— gods of wisdom and of folly— gods of war and 
of peace— gods of good and of evil— gods of pleasure, who de- 
light to shed around their votaries the fragrance of harmony 
and joy— gods of cruelty and wrath, whose thirst must be 
satiated with torrents of blood, and whose ears must be re- 
galed with the shrieks and agonies of expiring victims. All 
the virtues and the vices of man; all the allotments of life,— 
beauty, jollity, and sport ; the hopes and fears of youth, the 
felicities and infelicities of manhood, the joys and sorrows of 
old age,— all, all are placed under the presiding influence of 

G 



98 



superior powers. Every scene, every element, and almost 
every object in nature,— the bud that bursts forth in spring, 
the blossom of summer, and the fruits of autumn,— meadow 
and grove, fountain and stream,hill and valley ;— all have their 
guardian genii, whose freaks and revelries greatly outstrip, 
in number and variety, the " fairy gambols and goblin feats 
recognised by the credulity of northern superstition. " 

Though each divinity has its own distinctive and peculiar 
form, all may assume, at pleasure, any other variety that 
may suit the accomplishment of their designs. Such forms 
are not always temporary — not laid aside on the consumma- 
tion of the object for which they may have been adopted. 
Once assumed, they may become permanent forms of a par- 
ticular deity ;— each form possessing its own distinct personali- 
ty; exercising independent power; discharging separate func- 
tions as much as if it were altogether another divine being. 
Under any one or all of these forms, the deity may be wor- 
shipped with distinctive formulas, and appropriate rites 
and ceremonies. Still, amid forms, and names, and powers, 
and functions so various and extensive, there may not be 
many gods, but one god ; not many unconnected indepen- 
dent divine personages, but many personified forms of one 
individual deity. The characters that flit across the stage 
may seem numberless ; still, it may not be a succession of 
really separate personalities ; but rather a singularly rapid 
transition of one into many. Not unlike the transmutations 
of ventriloquism, or the fabled metamorphoses of poetry ; 
all may be only so many varieties of one original divinity. 
Besides the privilege of assuming any variety of ethereal 
forms, a divinity may manifest himself, and become incarnate 
in material corporeal forms, whether human or brutal. This 
is not supposed to imply any degradation of the deity, since 
he is believed to pass through the assumed forms, " like the 
subtile air, without defiling his pure and immutable nature.'" 
The heavens above and the worlds below, having now been 
peopled with their respective inhabitants, the earth was next 
stored with the whole " assembly of stationary and move- 
able bodies," destined to be occupied by terrestrial spirits. 



99 



Among these bodies the Divine Legislator specially enu- 
merates « birds of mighty wing, horse-faced sylvans, apes, 
nsh, tame cattle, moths, fleas, and common flies, with every 
biting gnat .'" By a species of emanation or successive 
eduction from the substance of his own body, Brahma gave 
ongm to the human race, consisting originally of four dis- 
tinct genera, classes, or castes. From his mouth, first of 
all, proceeded the Brahman caste ;_so designated after 
the name of the great progenitor, as being the highest 
and noblest in the scale of earthy existence-the nearest 
in kindred and in likeness to Brahma himself,-his visible 
representatives in human form. At the same time, there 
flowed from his mouth, in finished and substantial form, 
the four Vedas, for the instruction of mankind in all 
needtul knowledge. Of these the Brahmans were con- 
stituted the sole depositories, the sole interpreters, the 
sole teachers. To all the rest of their fellow-creatures 
they were to give out such portions and fragments, and in 
such manner and mode as they might deem most expedient. 
Hence their emanation from the mouth of Brahma became 
an emblem of their future characteristic function or office 
as the sole divinely appointed preceptors of the human race' 
*rom Brahma's arm, the protecting member of the body 
next emaned the Kshattrya, or military caste;-the source of 
emanation being emblematic of their future office ; which is 
to wield martial weapons for the defence of the rest of their 
fellows from internal violence, and external aggression 
From Brahma's breast, the seat of life, originated the 
Vaishya, or caste of productive capitalists, whether pastoral, 
agricultural, or mercantile;— the source of their origination 
being emblematic of their future function, which is to raise 
or provjde for themselves and the rest, all the necessaries, 
comforts, and luxuries which serve to support or exhilarate 
human life. From Brahma's foot, the member of inferiority 
and degradation, sprung the Shudra or servile caste, placed 
on the base of society;— the source of their production being 
emblematic of their future calling; which is, to perform for the 
other castes, all manner of menial duties, either as serfs or 



100 



manual cultivators of the soil, domestic attendants, arti- 
zans, and handicraftsmen of every respectable description. 

According to this rigid and unmodified account of the 
origin of man, it must at once appear that caste is not a civil 
but a sacred institution, — not an ordinance of human but of 
divine appointment. The distinction which it establishes 
between one family or tribe of man and another, is not of 
accident, but of essence, — not of arbitrary human will, but of 
eternal decree and necessity of nature. The difference which 
the various sources of derivation tend to originate and per- 
petuate, is not specific, but generic. It is a difference of kind 
as complete as if the races had sprung from absolutely dif- 
ferent primeval stocks. Hence, according to the strict 
spirit of the system, a man of one genus or caste, can no more 
be transformed into the member of another genus or caste, — 
whether from a higher to a lower, or from a lower to a high- 
er ; — no more, than a lion can be changed into a mole, or a 
mole into a lion ; a whale into a flying fish, or a flying fish 
into a whale ; a banyan tree into a thorn, or a thorn into a 
banyan tree ; a rose into a thistle, or a thistle into a rose. 
Each caste has, by divine ordination, its own peculiar laws 
and institutions, its own duties and professions, its own rites, 
and customs, its own liberties and immunities. The vio- 
lation of any fundamental principle, such as the eating of 
some strictly prohibited article of food, entails a forfeiture 
x>f caste with all its rights and prerogatives. This implies 
something more than mere degradation from a higher to a 
lower order within the pale of caste. Should a Brahman, 
for instance, violate the rules of his caste, he has it not in 
his power to enfranchise himself in the special privileges of 
any of the three lower. No : he sinks beneath the platform 
of caste altogether, — he becomes an absolute outcast. His 
own genus is completely changed ; and he cannot be trans- 
formed into any other existing genus. He must hencefor- 
ward form a new genus of his own. Just as if we deprived 
the lion of his shaggy mane and brawny paws, and changed 
his carnivorous into a graminivorous propensity,—- he would 
at once become an outcast from the present leonine genus, 



10J 



and incapable of being admitted into the genus of tigers, or 
bears, or any other :_and if the mutilated transformed 
creature should perpetuate its kind, there would arise an 
entirely new genus of animals. Hence it follows, that be- 
neath the fourth or lowest caste, there may be a class of be- 
ings belonging to no caste ; as if realizing the words of the 
poet, " beneath the lowest depth, a lower still — a class 
composed of outcasts from the four privileged orders, — 
the residuum of the refuse and offscourings of all the rest, 
— held in the utmost detestation and abhorrence, — compell- 
ed to resort to the least reputable, and often to the most 
loathsome occupation, for subsistence, — doomed to be sub- 
jected to all the pains and penalties and indignities of excom- 
munication and outlawry in this life, — and to irreparable dis- 
advantages as regards all preparation for the life to come. 

Such is the spirit of the original theory of caste, as un- 
folded and taught by divine authority. 

The universe having now been manifested and replenished 
throughout, with its furniture of animate and inanimate 
forms, how long is it destined to last ? What is the mea- 
sure of its duration ? According to the supposed revelation 
of the Hindu Scriptures, the continued manifestation of the 
universe is co-extensive with the life of Brahma. The uni- 
verse is his cotemporary throughout;— beginning and ending 
with him. Time was when neither Brahma nor the universe 
existed. When Brahm awoke, from his essence was se- 
parated the former as well as the rudimental atoms of the 
latter. But Brahma is not to live for ever. No. The days 
and years of his life are numbered ; and the days and years 
of his life regulate the successive ages, and fix the limits of 
the existence, of the universe. What, then, are the cycles 
of time which constitute the revolving periods of Brahma's 
being \ Let us endeavour to rise, step by step, through the 
amazing series. 

In reckoning the span of human existence, our lowest unit is 
a second of time. The primary unit in estimating the span of 



102 



Brahma's existence is an ordinary year of mortals, or a 
solar year, which is declared to be equivalent to " a day and 
night of the gods." Three hundred and sixty such days 
and nights, or three hundred and sixty solar years, consti- 
tute " a year of the gods." Twelve thousand such years 
of the gods form " an age of the gods," — " a divine age," — 
more commonly designated a maha-yug, or " great age :" In 
other words, a maha-yug, or " great age of the gods," is 
equal to four millions three hundred and twenty thousand years 
of mortals. Thus maha-yug is always subdivided into four 
lesser yugs, or ages, in the relative and diminishing propor- 
tion of four, three, two, and one; — so that the first and largest 
embraces a period of nearly two millions of years, and the 
fourth and last, a period of nearly half a million. The four, 
named the Satya, Treta, Dwapar, and Kali Yugs, some- 
what correspond in number, succession, and character, 
to the golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages of the Greek 
and Eoman mythologists. Seventy-one maha-yugs, or di- 
vine ages, compose a grand period, named a mamcantara, 
or cycle of time, during which one Manu, (or Menu,) with 
his posterity of sons and grandsons, is supposed to be in- 
vested with the sovereignty of the earth. Of these Manus 
there are fourteen, who reign in succession ; consequently, 
there are fourteen successive periods or manwantaras of 
equal length with that now described. These fourteen man- 
wantaras, with certain residuary additions of time, equal in all 
to&thousand maha-yugs, — give us the grand period denominat- 
ed a kalpa. Now, this kalpa, consisting of four thousand three 
hundred and twenty millions of solar years, "must be con- 
sidered," says the divine lawgiver, "as a day of Brahma ; 
and his night has also the same duration T Three hundred 
and sixty of these enormous days and nights compose a year 
of Brahma, — a period which exceeds in length three billions of 
the years of mortals. A hundred such years constitute the 
duration of Brahma s life ; In other words, the life of Brahma, 
which is the same in length as the duration of the universe, 
extends to upwards of three hundred billions of common years t 
Has any one the curiosity to inquire what point in this stu- 



103 



pendous cycle of ages do we at present occupy I Be it 
known, then, that above a half of the life of Brahma has 
already expired. Or, if definite information be more satis- 
factory, be it known, that in this year of the Christian era, 
(1839,) we are in the four thousand nine hundred and 
forty-fourth year of the kali-yug, of the twenty-eighth maha- 
yug, of the seventh manwantara, of the first kalpa or day 
of the fifty-first year of Brahma's age :— In other words, we 
are now considerably beyond the hundred and fifty billionth 
year of the creation ! 

After such a statement, we need not wonder at Mr Hal- 
hed's exclamation,—' 4 Computation is lost and conjecture 
overwhelmed in the attempt to adjust such astonishing 
spaces of time to our own confined notions of the world's 
epoch. To such antiquity the Mosaic creation is but as 
yesterday ; and to such ages the life of Methuselah is no 
more than a span !" But, we may well be permitted to 
wonder at the credulity of that scepticism which led poor 
Halhed to distrust the sober and indisputably authenticated 
announcements of the Hebrew lawgiver, while it greedily 
devoured the monstrous extravagances of the fabling Hindu 
chronologists ! 



Having thus ascertained the age, and estimated the dura- 
tion of the universe, we may be asked, Whether it is sup- 
posed to advance in its stately march along the roll of ages, 
unaltered, unmodified, undisturbed ? The reply is in the 
negative. In its progress it is subjected to great periodic 
mutations. At the commencement of each great cycle of time, 
such as the maha-yug, mankind is declaredtobeon thewhole,or 
comparatively, virtuous and happy; though carrying in them 
latent predispositions to evil. These predispositions gradu- 
ally break forth into open manifestation. Human depravity, 
becoming worse and worse, at length issues in the reign of 
almost universal degeneracy. Accordingly, at the termina- 
tion of each of the four lesser yugs or ages— of every maha- 
yug, or great age, — of every manwantara, or appointed space 



104 



of the reign of each of the fourteen Manus — there are 
great changes, ushered in by floods and storms, designed 
for the punishment and destruction of the wicked. These 
catastrophes affect only the Mundane fabric, which is again 
renewed and re-peopled by the righteous, whose lives have 
been preserved by a miraculous interposition of Deity. But 
there are other changes recurring at wider intervals, of a 
far more momentous character. At the close of each kalpa 
or day of Brahma, commences his night. The great Fa- 
ther, wearied with the labours and fatigues of government, 
during his long day of more than four thousand millions of 
years, then retires to sleep. When about to enter on his 
night of repose — a night of equal length with his day — he 
surrounds himself with darkness. Sun, moon, and stars 
become shrouded in the gloom. Clouds from above pour 
down torrents of rain ; and the waves of the ocean, agitated 
by mighty tempests, rise to a prodigious height. The 
seven lower worlds are at once submerged ; as well as the 
earth which we inhabit. Yea more ; the waters cease not 
to rise till they overwhelm, not the loftiest mountains merely, 
but the two worlds next in the order of ascent above the 
earth ! In the midst of this tremendous abyss, Brahma, 
in his assumed form of Narayana, reclines on the serpent, 
Ananta, or Eternity, with closed eyes, and reposes in mys- 
terious slumber. What a deluge have we here ? — A deluge, 
which by covering the seven inferior, and the first three 
of the superior worlds, must reach upwards to the Pole Star ! 
This may well be scouted as one of the most monstrous extra- 
vagances that ever germinated from the ravings of a crazy 
fanaticism. And so, in point of fact, it must be. But in 
point of principle, the principle namely of the abstract pos- 
sibility of such an event, who dare gainsay it ? Let the 
philosophers of this world despise, if they will, the authenti- 
city of the Mosaic account of the deluge. Let our own ra- 
tionalizing divines help to feed the lamp of a philosophy 
" falsely so called," by pretending to fetch new light from 
the ignis fatuus of German Neologianism to illumine one of 
the brightest pages of Heaven s own Revelation. Let both 



105 



the philosopher and the divine co-operate in their unhallowed 
task, on the express ground that they, forsooth, know not, and 
cannot understand whence the waters could issue that would 
" cover all the high hills that were under the whole heaven." 
What !— Is it not enough to know and understand that the 
Lord God is Omnipotent ? Know they better whence the 
solid fabric of the globe itself could proceed \ If not, are 
they prepared to resort to Pantheism, and like our Indian 
Brahmans, assert that it emaned from the substance of Deity \ 
Have they yet to learn that the truest and most heroic phi- 
losopher is he who is ever ready to admit any well-attested 
fact ; — while in regard to every question concerning its ori- 
gin or mode of being, he may only be able bravely to reply, "I 
cannot tell" Ye disciples of a proud philosophy and a proud 
theology, have ye yet to learn that this is no irrational 
reply ? Have ye yet to learn that it is and must be the 
terminating goal of the knowledge of all finite being, — the 
impassable limit of all the inquiries which created intelli- 
gence can institute I Take what steps you may ; resort to 
what expedients you please ; propose what topics your in- 
genuity can suggest ; enter what field of investigation you 
choose connected with earth or heaven, matter or spirit ; 
trace causes and effects, and properties and sequences to an 
extent proportionate to that pursued by the highest arch- 
angel basking in the sunshine of Jehovah's presence; 

and what have you gained as to compassing the domains of 
omniscience ?— -What have you gained as to reaching some 
point where a question may not be put, to which the only 
answer that can be returned is not the grand and ultimate 
one,—" I cannot tell ? " What have you gained in respect of 
attainments in knowledge, of which the very highest will 
not be to understand how profoundly ignorant you still 
are ?— What have you gained in ascending along the scale 
of infinity, by a course ever progressive, to render it even 
probable that nought will remain to call forth the humbling 
answer, — " I cannot tell ? " Unless the power were impart- 
ed of performing all things possible, and the faculty com- 
municated of comprehending all things intelligible ; unless 



106 



your powers and faculties should thus increase and swell in 
dimensions beyond all bounds : — unless, in a word, you could 
supersede the being and perfections of the Great God, by 
investing yourselves with infinite attributes, it is not con- 
ceivable that there will not remain some subjects, the nature 
of which you cannot fully know; and in regard to the sources, 
causes, and reasons of which, you will not have to return 
the distinguishing reply of all finitude of wisdom, " I can- 
not tell ! " Rather, therefore, than rack and, torture the 
literality of the Mosaic account of the deluge, — an account 
so marvellously authenticated by cumulative evidence colla- 
teral and direct, — rather than doubt or dispute the univer- 
sal prevalence of the waters, on the sole ground that we know 
not whence they could come : — rather than this, infinitely 
rather would we believe with the Hindu, not that the " flood 
actually reached the Pole Star, — for of that we have no evi- 
dence, — but that it could he made to reach so far, aye, and 
as far beyond, as the Pole Star is from the earth ! " And in so 
believing, might we not demonstrate that we were more truly 
the disciples of a sound philosophy and an enlightened reason, 
than those who make the proudest pretensions to both \ For 
sure we are, that He, by whose omnipotent creative fiat 
the substance of all worlds was summoned out of nothing, 
and all the hosts of heaven marshalled in their blazing 
courses, could, if He had so willed, have as easily converted 
the boundless void of space into a boundless abyss of waters ! 

During the long night of Brahma, the wicked inhabitants 
of all worlds utterly perish. But those who have escaped 
the general apostasy on earth ; the immortals that glad- 
den by their presence the summits of Su-Meru ; the half- 
deified progenitors of mankind in the world above the earth ; 
Indra, with the divine sages, and all other orders of celestial 
beings that fill with streaming radiance the region of the 
starry firmament ; — all rush, in consternation and terror, into 
the fourth of the superior worlds, or that which rises imme- 
diately beyond the Pole Star. Those amongst them that 
are most distinguished for meritorious virtue, may ascend 
still farther into one or other of the three highest heavens. In 



107 



these abodes of blessedness, which remain wholly unaffected 
by the deluge, the happy strangers, rescued from impending 
ruin, safely reside till the termination of Brahma's night. 
When he awakes, the heavenly luminaries shine forth ; the 
gloom is dispelled ; the waters are assuaged ; the earth re- 
appears ; every disorganized form of animate and inanimate 
being is renewed ;— by a process which, in many respects, is 
only a repetition of that pursued at the primary manifesta- 
tion of the universe. 

A partial destruction of the same kind, or a disorganiza- 
tion of the ten lower worlds recurs at the close of every kalpa 
or day of Brahma ; and a similar renovation at the termina- 
tion of every succeeding night. And as there are thirty-six 
thousand days, and as many nights in his life, there must be 
thirty-six thousand partial destructions or disorganizations of 
the larger moiety of the universe, and as many reconstruc- 
tions of it, during the period of its duration. 

How sad to think that the age of allegorizing has passed 
away ; or that the science of geology had not been as old as 
the Vedas ! Else, what a splendid theme for the allegorists 
would the present subject furnish I It has been said that 
" infinity of time gives to the discoveries of the geologist, the 
sublimity which is conferred by the infinity of space on those 
of the astronomer" Again and again have we been given to 
understand that we are now living amid the wrecks of older 
worlds — that, by chemical decomposition or mechanical 
violence, the former continents were gradually destroyed, 
and their materials transported by flood and whirlwind into 
the depths of ocean,— that these materials, first loosely de- 
posited in regular strata, were subsequently consolidated by 
volcanic heat,— and that, when at length sufficient substance 
had accumulated for the formation of new continents, the 
whole was upheaved, fractured, and contorted by cata- 
clasms or paroxysmal convulsions, and strewn in every direc- 
tion as the hills and valleys of a new world. " In short, 1 ' 
adds Mr Lyell, with emphasis, in his remarks on Hutton's 
Theory of the Earth, " In short, he required alternate periods 
of disturbance and repose, and such, he believed, had been, and 



108 



would for ever be, the course of nature" And what, might our 
allegorists continue, what can the alternate wakefulness and 
slumber of Brahma, accompanied with destructions and re- 
novations of the universe through the oscillating cycles of 
ages be, but a sublime representation of the grand geologi- 
cal discovery of the alternate dissolution and reorganization 
of the crust of our own planet, through boundless periods of 
past and future time ? 

But, letting this pass, — we proceed to remark that Hin- 
duism distinctly recognises a never-ending series of still 
mightier changes. During the days and nights of Brahma, 
when he is alternately awake and asleep, the universe ex- 
periences an alternate partial renovation and destruction. 
There was a time, however, when neither Brahma nor the 
universe existed ; and the time must come when both shall 
cease to be. When Brahm awakes, there is no universe 
at all. Consequently, it is not a renovation of an old uni- 
verse that takes place, but the production and manifestation 
of an entirely new one. The universe, once manifested, is 
destined to undergo successive dissolutions and revivals 
throughout the hundred years of Brahma's life. But when 
that life comes to a close, there is no longer a partial destruc- 
tion, but an utter annihilation. Then takes place a Maha 
Pralaya or great destruction of the entire universe, with all 
its furniture and inhabitants ; — for then are all things re- 
duced to absolute nonentity. 

The authors of Hinduism seem to labour under an oppres- 
sive burden when attempting to pourtray this great and final 
catastrophe. They tell us, that for a hundred years rain 
shall pour down upon the earth ; and for want of food fa- 
mished men and animals shall devour each other, and all 
animated beings miserably perish. They tell us, that for a 
hundred years more, storms and hurricanes fiercely drifting 
the lurid vapours will involve the atmosphere in smoky 
darkness. They tell us, that the sun, with terrific beams, 
will drink up the sea and the rivers of water. They tell us, 
that circling masses of flame, tossed by the winds in fiery 
eddies, will envelope the world in a universal conflagration." 



109 



Then will commence the grand process of the dissolution 
of all things ; or their resolution into those seminal principles 
whence they sprung. All visible corporeal forms, throughout 
all worlds, will be reduced to those grosser elements of which 
they are composed. The grosser elements themselves will 
be decomposed into the five rudimental particles. These 
again will merge one into the other, in the reverse order of 
that in which they were evolved, — that is, the terrene atom 
into the igneous atom ; the igneous into the aqueous ; the 
aqueous into the aerial ; the aerial into the ethereal. The 
ethereal atom will then melt away into the principle of con- 
sciousness. Into the same principle of consciousness will be 
resolved the eleven organs and instruments of sense and ac- 
tion. Consciousness will be devoured by intellect. Intellect 
will be re-fused into the essence of the Supreme Brahm. At 
one and the same time, all souls, whether good or bad, righte- 
ous or wicked, worthy of reward or deserving of punishment, 
— all spirits, whether occupying forms celestial, terrestrial, 
or infernal ; — all souls or spirits that emanated directly and 
without any intermediate process of successive evolution, 
find a still speedier and simpler resolution into the essence 
of the imperishable. And thus all things corporeal and 
incorporeal — animate and inanimate — gods, and men, 
and devils — animals, vegetables, and minerals — earth, sea, 
and sky — fire and ether — sun, moon, and stars ; — all, all, 
whether material or immaterial, visible or invisible, will 
shrink away into more and more general forms of being, till 
they are wholly reabsorbed into the impersonal essence of the 
Supreme Spirit. Time itself will cease, and universal dark- 
ness reign. Nothing, nothing will exist throughout the bound- 
less depths of space, but he who is without beginning and 
without end, the sole existent, incomprehensible Brahm ! 

Is the present, then, the only universe that has ever been, 
or that ever will be ? No. The present is only a link in the 
chain, one end of which is lost in the depths of past time ; 
and the other will be, in the depths of the future. After 
the utter destruction of a universe by reabsorption into the 
essence of Brahm, when myriads of ages — compared with 



110 



which the life of Brahma is but as a grain of sand to the 
solar system — have passed away, Brahm always awakes 
again. No sooner does he awake, than he always desires 
to manifest the universe : then all things are reproduced 
in the same way, and after the same order that has been 
already described. Every successive universe is but a re- 
petition of that which preceded it. During the existence of 
each, it is subjected to the same periodic series of disorgan- 
izations at the close of every day of Brahma; and to a corres- 
ponding series of renovations at the close of every one of his 
nights. And always when Brahma's life expires, the universe 
is again and again completely absorbed or annihilated. 

Thus, there has been, according to the Hindu Shastras, 
an alternating succession of manifestations and annihila- 
tions of the universe, at intervals of inconceivable length, 
throughout the measureless ages of a past eternity ; — and 
there will be the same alternate never-ending succession of 
manifestations and annihilations throughout the boundless 
ages of the eternity that is to come ! 

Before entering on the practical bearings of the system, 
it were well briefly to answer a question which is often put, 
namely, Whether the Hindu Shastras, having fixed the 
position which we occupy in the current cycle of time, really 
profess to recount the history of past ages ? Profess ! They 
not only profess, but actually undertake to narrate events, 
which are alleged to have happened millions of years ago, 
with far greater minuteness than those of yesterday ! 

It is at the beginning of the present kalpa, when, after 
his long night of slumber, Brahma awoke, and the lower 
worlds emerged from the waters of the great deluge, that 
the sacred history of the Hindus commences. In the same 
way as at the dawn of preceding kalpas, Brahma's first 
work was to renew the different races of animated beings 
which had perished in the deluge. Practice does not seem 
to have improved his productive skill ; for at the last reno- 
vation his difficulties were as great, and his experiments as 



Ill 



numerous as ever. After arranging the divisions of time 

days, months, years, and yugs, he at length succeeds in pro- 
ducing, first trees, climbing plants, fruits, roots, and all 
manner of herbs. Secondly, birds, cattle, and creeping 
things. Thirdly, many sons, who become the heads of classes 
of superior beings — gods and demigods — good and bad. 
Lastly, the human race. The production of all these orders 
of being was carried on in one of the higher heavens that 
had remained unaffected by the deluge ; and after the water 
subsided, they were let down to take possession of earth and 
other lower worlds. Along with them descended the first 
of the Manus, Swayambhuva, with his spouse Shatarupa, 
to exercise dominion over the earth. To them many sons 
were born, some of whom embraced a religious life ; and 
seven were appointed viceroys over the seven great con- 
tinents. Some of these again had seven sons, among whom 
the continents were equally subdivided, and separated by 
seven chains of mountains and seven rivers. One of these 
chains was four hundred thousand miles high ; — reaching 
only to the moon ! 

Of these monarchs who lived about two thousand millions 
of years ago, various minute particulars are recorded. Some 
reigned hundreds of thousands of years ago. Some volun- 
tarily abdicated their thrones, renounced the world, em- 
braced an ascetic life, retired into forests, and became en- 
titled to celestial happiness. Some taught their subjects 
the use of agriculture, manufactures, and various arts. 
Some became universal conquerors, and raised their coun- 
try to the highest pitch of prosperity and renown. 

Of Jamba Dwip, the central island or continent, the mi- 
nutest accounts are furnished ; — with the names of its pro- 
vinces, districts, and cities,— of its rivers and mountains. 
So that one might suppose he was perusing the geography 
of some kingdom in modern Europe after it had been tri- 
gonometrically surveyed, rather than the geographical out- 
lines of a country as it existed hundreds of millions of years 
ago ! This country, Jamba, evidently means only Hindu- 
stan; though the modern interpreters of the Shastras con- 



112 



sider that it includes the four quarters of the world as at 
present known to Europeans. This is manifestly an accom- 
modation, or bending of their books to meet the results of 
modern discovery. When pressed as to the existence and 
situation of the other six islands or continents, they reply, 
that all communication between them and our own ceased 
from times of remote antiquity ; — that the circumnavigation 
of the world from east to west, and the traversing of the 
salt sea in every direction, without falling in with them, is 
no proof of their non-existence, but only proof that the ships 
have not penetrated far enough towards either pole to come 
in contact with them ! 

The accounts of the first manwantara having been brought 
to a close, we are next furnished in succession with various 
particulars respecting the second, third, fourth, fifth, and 
sixth, — at the commencement of each of which a different 
Manu began to reign, and transmitted his empire to sons 
and grandsons onwards to its close. The present or seventh 
manwantara was introduced, as usual, by one of the inferior 
deluges, that is, a general deluge confined to this earth. 
Of this deluge different accounts are given in the sacred 
writings, in many respects irreconcileably discordant, but 
agreeing in most of the leading particulars, which strongly 
resemble the principal features in the Mosaic description of 
the flood. Of two of these an admirable analysis is fur- 
nished in a beautiful article on Sanskrit poetry in the Quar- 
terly Review, of which we shall freely avail ourselves. 

Immediately before the deluge, towards the end of the 
kali-yug of the last maha-yug of the preceding manwantara, 
the holy Manu, Satyavrata, like Noah, stood almost alone 
in the midst of universal depravity. By the margin of a 
sacred stream he was accosted by a fish, in which, without 
his knowledge, Brahma, (in one of the Shastras,) Vishnu, 
(in another) had become incarnate. The fish appealed 
to the humanity of Manu to save it, being of very small 
size, from the more powerful and rapacious monsters 
of the deep. The kind-hearted Manu at once complied, 
and cast it into a crystal vessel. As time rolled on, the fish, 



113 



waxing too large to find room for moving in the vessel, 
begged to be removed to another place. It was then borne 
to a spacious lake, but soon grew too large for the lake to 
contain its bulk. At its request, it was next carried to the 
Granges ; but it so increased in size that that mighty stream 
became too narrow for it. Lastly, from the Ganges it was 
conveyed to the ocean ; and there expanded to the distance 
of a million leagues, blazing like a thousand suns. The fish 
then addressed Manu, promising to be his guardian and pro- 
tector ; foretold the approaching deluge, by which the world 
and all things therein would be submerged ; commanded 
him to build a ship, and to go on board with the seven sages, 
— bearing with him, according to one account, the seminal 
principles of all existing things ; and, agreeably to another, 
the birds and beasts after their kinds. As the time appointed 
drew nigh, Manu, with his companions, embarked. The 
wondrous fish appeared " in his form foreshown, the horned, 
like a mountain huge and high." Lashed to the prominent 
horn of the fish, Manu's new-built vessel commenced its 
perilous voyage : — 

" Dancing with the tumbling billows, dashing through the roaring spray ; 
Tossed about by winds tumultuous, in the vast and heaving sea, 
Like a trembling drunken woman, reeled that barque — Oh, king of men ! 
Earth was seen no more ; no region, nor the intermediate space, — 
All around a waste of water ; water all, and air, and sky. 
In the whole world of creation, princely son of Bharata ! 
None were seen but those seven sages, Manu only, and the fish. 
Years on years, and still unwearied, drew that fish the barque along, 
Till, at length, it came, where reared Himavan its loftiest peak ; 
There, at length, they came ; and smiling, thus the fish addressed the sage : 
' Bind thou now thy stately vessel to the Peak of Himavan.' 
At the fish's mandate quickly to the Peak of Himavan 
Bound the sage his barque ; and ever to this day that loftiest peak 
Bears the name of Naubandhana, from the binding of the ship." 

The deity, who had so long inhabited the fish, now fully 
revealed himself. Manu became the parent of the new-born 
human race. And the earth, delivered from the waters of 
the deluge, was once more stocked with the various tribes 
of animated being. 

The present manwantara having been thus introduced, 

H 



114 



we may pass over the twenty-seven maha-yugs that have in- 
tervened since its commencement ; and come at once to the 
twenty-eighth, in which our own lot is cast. This maha-yug, 
like all the rest, consists of the four lesser yugs, — the Satya, 
Treta, Dwapar, and Kali. Of these, the first three have 
expired. And, as we are this year (1839) in the 4944th of 
the kali-yug, very nearly four millions of the present maha- 
yug have passed away. According to the scheme of Hin- 
duism, each Manu does not reign in person throughout the 
whole of the seventy-one maha-yugs of his manwantara. 
No. He reigns only in every first age, or satya-yug, and 
then disappears during the remaining three that follow it ; 
— "continuing," as Sir W. Jones has so facetiously ex- 
pressed it, " to dive and emerge like a water fowl, till the 
close of his manwantara." So, then, during the whole of the 
last satya-yug, nearly two millions of years, the Manu 
Satyavrata reigned. He left nine sons, among whom he 
divided the earth, partitioning to each his separate king- 
dom. The eldest of these, and a grandson by his daughter, 
Ila, speedily rose to distinguished pre-eminence above their 
brethren. The former had his seat of empire at Ayodhya, 
or Owde ; the latter at Pratishthana, or Vitora. They be- 
came, severally, the founders of two great families, famed 
in Indian annals under the denomination of " the race of 
the sun " and " the race of the moon." These royal fami- 
lies, or solar and lunar dynasties, subsisted in an unbroken 
line of succession throughout the whole of the second and 
third ages — the treta and dwapar-yugs ; — and only became 
extinct in the thousandth year of the present kali-yug ; that 
is, about two thousand years before Christ. 

Of the successive princes of these solar and lunar races, 
who lived and reigned cotemporaneously for upwards of two 
millions of years, we have not merely chronological lists 
of names ; but whole volumes filled with accounts of their 
feuds and quarrels, their battles and conquests, — with notices 
of every description of incidents, proceedings and details. 
Of one we are told that he had a hundred sons ; of another, 
that he had ten thousand. One is a mighty conqueror that 



115 



overcomes the whole earth ; another becomes a celebrated 
anchorite. One is deposed for partaking of the victim of- 
fered in sacrifice, before it was presented to the gods at the 
celebration of the funeral obsequies of his father ; another, 
after the toils of a war in which he rendered essential ser- 
vice to the gods themselves, accepts of the blessing of a long 
sleep for more than a million of years. One offends the 
Brahmans, and has his kingdom cursed by them, so as to be 
wholly without rain for twelve years ; another succeeds in 
obtaining the blessing of his spiritual guide, who transfers 
to him his own merits, and directs him to ascend to heaven, 
but the gods demur to his admission, and hurl him headlong 
to the earth. One laboured to purchase the favour of the 
gods by heaping upon them a thousand flatteries % another, 
for his contempt of them, was fixed in the air with his head 
downwards. One had a son who swallowed the Ganges ; 
another attempted to offer serpents in sacrifice, but failed 
through the intervention of a Brahman, who " interceded 
m behalf of the serpents his uncles,"— and when he next en- 
gaged in offering a horse, the king of the gods " entering 
the horse's head after it was cut off, caused it to dance, and 
thus excited much laughter among the assembled spectators. 11 
One was very learned in various sciences, and published 
works on civil and religious polity ; another, for his ignor- 
ance and his crimes, was transformed into an ass, but eventu- 
ally permitted to assume the human form every night. One 
raised an army of ten thousand millions of soldiers ; an- 
other, by one of his wives, had sixty thousand sons, who 
were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of milk, reduced 
to ashes by the curse of a sage, and, lastly, resuscitated by 
the vivifying efficacy of the waters of the Ganges. Here we 
must pause. These are but specimens of the interminable 
puerilities and extravagances with which the annals of my- 
riads of ages are densely crowded, and which are constantly 
rehearsed and intensely admired by the millions of India ! 
Oh ! what a contrast to the brief but comprehensive, the 
plain but sober and majestic statements in the Antediluvian 
and Patriarchal histories recorded in the Bible ! 



116 



During the next fifteen hundred years which immediately 
followed the epoch of the extinction of the Solar and Lunar 
races, ample accounts are given of various regal dynasties 
that rose and fell in rapid succession. About the middle of 
the fifth century before Christ, (452, B. 0.) with the death 
of a great prince, named Chandrabija, terminates what Sir 
W. Jones pronounces the " most authentic system of Hindu 
chronology which he had been able to procure. " Should 
any farther information be attainable," adds he, " we shall 
perhaps, in due time, attain it either from books or inscrip- 
tions in the Sanskrit language." Hitherto, however, little 
additional has been attained of any real material value, — no- 
thing that tends to throw more light on the earlier ages of 
Indian history. Subsequent to the fifth century, B. 0., seve- 
ral isolated names do appear in writings of comparatively 
modern date ; and amongst them the name of Vikramaditya, 
who reigned at Megadha shortly before the Christian era. 
But since the year of our Lord 1053, Indian history and 
chronology have sunk wholly into the grave ; — the Brahmans 
alleging as the reason, that about that time, the sacred ter- 
ritory of Hindustan fell into the hands of Mlech'has or un- 
clean infidels ; — and, that in consequence, its annals were 
no longer worth preserving ! Thus, unlike most other his- 
tories which are usually full, minute, and circumstantial, in 
proportion as they approach the more modern days of gene- 
ral illumination, but gradually become more obscure and 
muffled in clouds, as they ascend upwards into the dark re- 
cesses of the past, — the history of India is most copious and 
overflowing with details the higher it mounts into the regi- 
ons of an unmeasurable antiquity ; gradually becomes dim- 
mer, and finally disappears as it descends into the era of 
light and knowledge; — like a river which, after fertilizing the 
valleys of many a lofty mountain-range, loses itself among 
the white sands of the desert in its passage to the open sea. 
Or, like those aerial spectral essences, which are said to be 
congealed into visible forms by the cold of night, but become 
rarified and disappear before the warmth of sunshine, — the 
ideal fabrications of Hinduism, which were consolidated into 



117 



portentous figures in the cold dark night of ignorance, seem 
to be attenuated, and to evanish before the rising of the sun 
of knowledge. 

In the whole of the preceding statements, if there be one 
characteristic more marked than another, it is the perpetual 
tendency to run out into the vast, the huge, the extravagant. 
Nothing seems worthy of being stated unless it has incredible 
magnitude to recommend it. The more any thing transcends 
the bounds of nature and of truth, the greater is the gravity 
with which it is asserted, and the more unquestioning the 
credulity with which it is received. When time is calculat- 
ed, nought will suffice but millions and hundreds of millions 
of years. When earth is measured, we must have millions 
and hundreds of millions of miles. When armies and bat- 
tles are described, there must be introduced on the field of 
action, millions and hundreds of millions of soldiers and ele- 
phants. Whence the cause of a taste and a propensity which 
may truly be represented as national ? That the wildest and 
the most incoherent fictions should be dreamed by a solitary 
ascetic " in the highest state of abstraction from all objects 
of sense, in the deep silence of a sultry noon ; when of the 
whole man nothing is awake but the phantasy, and only the 
language of earth, in which his images are embodied, is re- 
membered, with none of the thoughts or sympathies of hu- 
man nature," seems nothing strange. But how comes a 
whole nation, all awake and alive to the tame and common- 
place realities of every-day life, to listen to every recital of 
the prodigious, with such delighted and believing wonder ? 
It may be that a religious faith which from the earliest in- 
fancy demands the unconditional surrender of reason, and 
can brook no mental state save that of unthinking acquies- 
cence : — It may be that the almost universal prevalence of 
such a faith has tended to generate and perpetuate nationally 
an intellectual imbecility and childhood which can only be re- 
galed by the marvellous and the monstrous. It may be that 
other extrinsic causes co-operate in producing the same re- 



118 



suit. Is it not a matter of common observation that climate 
and natural scenery do exert a peculiar influence on the 
mental as well as physical constitution of man ? Who could 
reasonably expect a high poetic genius to be nursed and 
reared in a region of flats and fens, of swamps and marshes ? 
If the great, the vast, the sublime in the objects of the ex- 
ternal world, tend to excite and prominently to develope the 
conceptive and imaginative faculties in the soul, let us en- 
deavour to realize the state of things in India. Think of 
those ocean-streams that roll fertility along their banks for 
thousands of miles ; and on whose bosoms might be wafted 
the navies of a globe. Think of those immensely extended 
plains, bestrewn with such gigantic products of the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms, that, in their presence, the stranger 
instinctively stands still in dumb amazement. Think of 
those mountain-barriers in the north, emphatically styled by 
Bishop Heber the loftiest eminences beneath the moon. 
Think of those cataracts from the clouds, that pour 
down as if they threatened to renew the general deluge. 
Think of those mighty thunderings that sound as if they 
could rend creation asunder. Think of those lightning 
blazes that seem to shroud the concave of heaven as in 
a universal conflagration.— Think of these and all the 
other grand phenomena of nature which are constantly 
presented to the eye and ear of the natives of India ; — and 
say if they do not tend to expand the imagination beyond 
due limits ; and cause it to soar into the regions of the 
vast, the supra-mundane, and the preter-human ? Farther 
still, when we are apt to wonder why so many millions of 
human beings delight so exclusively in representations not 
only of what is rare and extraordinary, but of what glaringly 
exceeds all the bounds of truth and reason ; — may not an- 
other solution offer itself to our consideration ? May not 
this craving after, and delight in, the vast and the marvel- 
lous be, in fact, nothing else than the outgoing of an ori- 
ginal principle in the human soul,— a principle which, like 
every other, naturally moves forth towards its appropriate 
objects ; and in the possession of these, seeks the only means 



119 



of gratification ? Man has affections ; — and do not these 
pant after new pleasures ? He has desires ;— and do not 
these long for new possessions \ He has an understanding ; 
— and must it not have new objects of contemplation ? He 
has a fancy ;— and does it not frame unto itself new images 
that own no earthly pattern for their prototype ? Man was 
made for immortality ; —and is it not this alone, as na- 
tural theologists delight to assure us, that accounts for the 
vehemency, the impetuous propension, the sighing of spirit 
after the mysterious and never-ending future ? Was not the 
soul of man also made and destined to repose on the infinite ? 
— and hence the feeling or emotion of wonder and admira- 
tion, — an emotion which the rudest savage experiences 
equally with the philosopher and the saint;— an emotion 
whose proper object is the great, the extraordinary, the in- 
finite ! And if the real object,— the true infinite,— be lost 
sight of, will not the soul strive to shape unto itself mimic 
representations,— forms,— idols of the infinite \ In pursuit of 
such an object, do we not actually find it blending its being 
with the ages of a past eternity ; and amplifying itself so as to 
embrace the eternal ages that are to come % Do we not find 
it diffusing and spreading itself over boundless heights and 
depths and breadths of space \ It soars aloft ; it dives be- 
neath ; it wings its flight into immensity ; — and will not, 
cannot rest, till it finds its centre,— its couch of repose, — on 
the bosom of the Infinite ! And do not such unconfined, 
such ceaseless and ever-active motions of the soul towards 
the great, — the infinite, — assert and vindicate the nobility 
of its lineage, — the more than nobility of its destiny ? 
Worthless, therefore, and worse than worthless as the ex- 
travagances of Hinduism are when viewed as the pretended 
substitutes for true history, or true science, or true religion; — 
may they not possess some value however small, when viewed 
as monuments of the souFs original capacity and powers ? In 
them we are carried up to the verge of the general deluge ; 
in them we mingle with the wrecks of primordial tradition — 
the scattered remnants of antediluvian thought ; in them 
we associate and blend with the ideas and imaginings of the 



120 



human mind thousands of years ago. And in the vastness 
of the erratic fancies ; in the stupendous pilings of the mar- 
vellous which we encounter at every turn ; — may we not at 
least be made to see and feel, and acknowledge that nought 
but infinity can satisfy and replenish the soul of man ? If 
the objects sought after have exceeded all finite bounds, 
though false and unnatural to a prodigy, — let us not condemn 
the propensity, but endeavour to substitute the proper ob- 
ject, — the true Infinite, — in Christianity ; — and that is, the 
triune Jehovah, who is emphatically " the infinite ocean of 
truth and goodness." And, after ages of ages have rolled 
their course, will the wonder and admiration of the adoring 
soul be increasingly enhanced, to find that this ocean is still 
without a bottom and without a shore ! 

We now come very briefly to show how the theory of Hin- 
duism is reduced to practice. If, as already in substance 
remarked, the theory of Hinduism were a mere theory ; if 
it were a mere series of barren speculations or inoperative 
dogmas ; if it were confined to the musings of an eremitical 
phrenzy, or the revellings of a roving fancy; if it were wholly 
of an esoteric character, shaping the secret opinions of the 
learned, or prompting their idle and airy abstractions; — if 
the Indian Meru, like the Grecian Olympus, were divested of 
all effulgence, save that of its everlasting snows ; if the Hindu 
Benares, like the Athenian Acropolis or Roman Capitol, 
were emptied of the whole dynasty of immortals ; — then, 
would we not waste precious time in expatiating on such 
profitless themes. But it is because the transcendental 
doctrines of the Vedas never were like those of the Grecian 
schools, wholly of an esoteric character — confined to a few 
— and absolutely uninfluential even in their conduct : — it 
is because for thousands of years they have been reduced 
to practice — moulding the feelings, thoughts, sentiments, 
affections, and faith of countless millions ; — it is because 
at the present moment they operate as living, all-prevailing 
principles in the hearts and understandings of so many 



121 



myriads of fellow-men and fellow-subjects : — it is because 
of all this that they must be fraught with such awful signifi- 
cance — such thrilling interest — such incalculable importance 
in the estimation of all who have the sympathies of men, 
and the faith of Christians. 

It is not necessary to particularise separately the peculiar 
modifications in practice to which the strictly spiritual and 
psycho-ideal systems give rise. The technical terms expres- 
sive of these are in constant use. They even spread far beyond 
the sphere of positive belief ; they mingle and interblend in 
strange heterogeniousness with the terms expressive of the 
psycho-material system ; — giving to the whole in the eye of a 
novice, an air of hopeless inextricable confusion. Besides, 
as the adherents of the two former systems do allow that, 
owing to the illusive influence of the divine energy, we cannot 
help believing though falsely in the separate independent 
existence of material forms, they are found in practice to unite 
and amalgamate in great measure with the adherents of 
the more generally received systems. 

At the time of the last manifestation or reproduction of the 
universe, how were all beings formed ? — Very perfect \ very 
good ? — No. The best of them were not absolutely perfect — 
absolutely good. Immediately on being emitted from the di- 
vine essence, they were, according to one of the Shastras, at 
once endowed by " the Supreme Lord" with the seeds of all 
manner of qualities, " noxious and innocent, harsh and mild, 
just and unjust, false and true," — but in degrees and modes 
infinitely diversified. Does not this investiture of souls with 
evil qualities in embryo as well as good, make the Supreme 
Lord at once, doctrinally and systematically, the author of 
evil \ And seeing that in consequence of this ordination, 
some, such as the superior gods, are happy ; — others, such 
as beasts and inferior beings, are miserable ;— and others 
again, such as men, partake of happiness and unhappiness, 
must not unfairness and incompassionateness be imputed to 
him ? No ;— replies Vyasa, the inspired author of the Ve- 
dant, and compiler of the Vedas,— not at all. How then 
is the Supreme Lord to be vindicated from the charge ?— 



122 



By a practical application of the doctrine of the eternity 
and transmigration of souls — as well as the eternal succession of 
destructions and reproduct ions of the universe ! 

The individual soul, it is at once conceded, is not now 
endowed with free will. It is declared to be governed ab- 
solutely by the Supreme Lord. It is not only guided, but 
unalterably determined by him in all its actions, good or 
bad — whether leading to misery or to woe. How then can 
he be exempted from the charge of being the immediate 
author of evil and unhappiness? Because, says Vyasa, he 
only causes the soul to do good or ill now, according to its 
predisposition for good or evil, for enjoined or forbidden 
deeds, contracted in a former state of being. Its pre- 
sent good works, therefore, are the result and reward 
of former merit ; its present evil deeds the result and 
retribution of former demerit. Since it is made to act 
entirely in conformity with its previous results ; — " now, 
according to its former purposes, as then, consonantly to its 
yet earlier predispositions, accruing from preceding forms 
or states of being, with no retrospective limit," — for the 
universe, in its manifested or unmanifested form, is sempi- 
ternal. 

Thus the Supreme Lord makes the individual soul act 
" relatively to its virtuous or vicious propensities, as the 
same fertilising rain-cloud causes various seeds to sprout 
multifariously, producing diversity of plants according to 
their kind." These virtuous and vicious propensities were 
acquired in a previous state of being ; and these acquired 
in a former state ; and these again in an earlier still ; — and 
so backwards in endless retrogression. 

In other words, the series of anterior forms of being, and 
of dispositions acquired in them has been infinite. And 
thus it is believed that, notwithstanding the absence of 
free-will on the part of individual souls, the immediate 
authorship of moral evil, and consequent misery, is shifted 
from the supreme actuating Spirit, by assuming " the past 
eternity of the universe, and the infinite renewals of worlds 
into which every individual being has brought the predispo- 



1US 



sitions contracted by him in earlier states, and so retrospec- 
tively without beginning or limit:' It is surely needless 
to remark that this is mere evasion — most unsatisfactory 
— and no answer at all. It is only wrapping up the sub- 
ject in clouds— and plunging it into the abysses of eternity, 
so that it cannot be seen. 

At the last reproduction of the universe, all souls are 
launched forth — imbued with qualities contracted during 
a previous manifestation of it—after an interval of countless 
myriads of ages. They are launched forth, ready to occupy 
the infinite variety of forms, celestial and terrestrial, pre- 
pared for them— forms divine and human — animal and vege- 
table— moveable and immoveable. As the assuming of a 
corporeal form is not the commencement of the soul's ex- 
istence, so neither is the dissolution of the corporeal form 
the termination of its existence. It is from everlasting to 
everlasting. But as bodily forms, the temporary abodes of 
souls, undergo a constant succession of mutation, the pro- 
per destiny of every soul is to transmigrate, with a mew to 
expiate its guilt and wipe away its stains bp means of pains 
and sufferings, through millions and millions more of these 
forms, throughout the stupendous cycle which constitutes 
the life of Brahma, or the duration of the present universe. 
The superior gods, be it remembered, are not subject to 
transmigration hence their superiority, and hence are 
they called immortal— as they enjoy the highest happiness 
attainable, apart from absorption, through the whole of 
Brahma's life. 

Though this be the proper destiny of the vast majority of 
souls, it is nevertheless declared — however it may appear 
wholly inconsistent with other parts of the system,— that 
there are divinely prescribed means, by which that destiny 
can be modified, arrested, or wholly changed. A very suc- 
cinct statement of certain grand fundamental principles, 
will soon render the subject intelligible. 

The /^principle, tenet, or doctrine is, that there are dif- 
ferent kinds of future bliss. Of these there are three which may 
be termed generic— differing in kind as well as in degree. 



124 



The lowest kind is not so much positive as relative bliss. 
It consists in the pleasure of an experienced- progress to- 
wards what is real and positive. It consists in the pleasure 
that accrues to a soul when it finds that it has risen a grade 
higher in the next birth, in consequence of some merit earn- 
ed in the preceding. Having advanced one step in the lad- 
der up the steep and arduous and long ascent towards 
perfection, the soul is exhilarated by the prospect of ultimate 
deliverance. But this relative felicity may be short-lived ; 
because some act of omission or commission in the higher 
state that has been reached, may sink the soul lower down 
in the next transmigration. 

The next and higher kind of future bliss is of a positive 
character. Still, it is, in its nature, sensuous, and in its 
duration more or less limited. It consists in the enjoyment 
of carnal delights in the heaven of one or other of the su- 
perior gods. But such enjoyment is only temporary. For 
after the stock of merits which led to the heavenly elevation 
has been fairly exhausted by the fruition of that measure of 
felicity to which its possessor became entitled, the soul must 
again descend to this lower world to transmigrate through 
another new series of terrestrial forms. 

The last and highest kind of future bliss is styled, by 
way of pre-eminence, " The supreme good " — " final and 
eternal beatitude." It is, however, a very peculiar kind of 
bliss ; if bliss it can be called in our sense of that term. It 
is deemed real, — it can hardly be called actual. It is 
supersensuous, — it can hardly be called spiritual. Its es- 
sential element is not that of activity, but quiescence. It 
consists not in the exercise, but rather oblivion, of all the 
faculties. It is not a keen relish and enjoyment of the 
great, the beautiful, the sublime, but rather a freedom from 
actual pain and suffering. If such a state be one of happi- 
ness, it is surely a state not of positive but of absolutely 
negative happiness. In what, then, does it consist \ — In 
the absorption of the soul into the essence of Brahm, the 
Supreme Spirit — a literal absorption, which terminates in 
the total extinction of individual existence. The soul thus 



125 



once absorbed, is not liable to reappear on earth,— is not 
subject to any farther migration. This felicity, therefore, 
is held to be eternal — eternal, relatively, not absolutely — inas- 
much as the soul is liberated from the vicissitudes of mortal 
life in any of its forms, during the present existence of the 
universe, and throughout the myriads of ages in which 
Brahm enjoys his dreamless repose. 

A second fundamental principle is, that as there is a gra- 
duated scale of rewards, so there is a graduated scale of future 
punishments ; the less wicked being sunk into a lower posi- 
tion in the next birth, — the more wicked being sent down 
to one or other of innumerable hells, to reappear, however, 
on earth, in mineral, animal, and vegetable forms, before they 
rise to the human, — the most wicked of all being doomed to 
experience the misery and woe of perdition till the time of 
the dissolution of all things. 

A third grand fundamental tenet or doctrine is, that not 
only are there three distinct kinds of future bliss,— not only 
is the pursuit of one or all of these perfectly consistent with 
the venerated standards of the Hindu faith, but that there 
are three equally distinct paths specially marked out and pre- 
scribed in these sacred standards for the attainment of them 
all. What are these ? In order to secure the lowest, or a 
higher step in the next birth, there must be a careful per- 
formance of all the necessary duties peculiar to caste, and 
of many of the ordinary practices and ceremonies which con- 
stitute the popular system of idolatry and superstition. In 
order to secure the next, or a temporary abode in some one 
of the celestial paradises, there must be the performance of 
extra services to the gods, or of acts of extraordinary merit, 
— acts which are specifically described and recommended in 
writings held to be inspired. In order to secure the highest, or 
absorption, there must be the perfect abandonment of works 
of merit altogether, whether ordinary or extraordinary. Re- 
course must be had to austerities— to divine knowledge— to 
pure and intense meditation on the Eternal Spirit ; which 
leads to perfect abstraction from all that is material, and 
ultimate absorption into the object of devout adoration. 



126 



A fourth fundamental tenet or doctrine is, that, as the 
three different kinds of future bliss are alike legitimate and 
alike attainable through the vigorous pursuit of the different 
means specifically appropriated for the attainment of each, 
so it is practically in the power of believers to aim at any one 
of the different kinds of future bliss which they may decided- 
ly prefer ; and to pursue, accordingly, the specific path for 
its attainment. In this way every man may have his liking ! 
To the three higher castes all the kinds of bliss are open. 
To the fourth class, either of the inferior kinds of bliss is 
open. And when, from extra merit, he rises to any of the 
higher classes in a future birth, he may then aspire to the 
acquisition of the highest, or final beatitude. All the kinds 
of bliss, and the respective means leading to them, are 
equally sanctioned, — the preference, of course, being given 
to the highest. It is constantly extolled as the noblest and 
the best. Those who pursue it as their paramount object 
are distinguished as outshining their fellows with a peerless 
lustre. Still, the rest are not only sanctioned but recom- 
mended, though their excellencies are of an inferior grade. 

Behold, then, the triumph of Hinduism ! Behold Satan^ 
master-piece of ingenuity for the entanglement of souls — for 
the thraldom of the universal mind in India. Here, by a 
device the most subtile, the transcendental Pantheist, who 
dwells in solitary mental abstraction, is made to extend the 
right hand of fellowship to the crouching slave whose life is 
spent in the unceasing round of an idolatrous and super- 
stitious ritual. Yea more, — the transcendentalist may 
ally himself with the vilest of the brutal tribes, and with the 
forms of grossest materialism. They only occupy different 
departments of one great all-comprehending system ; — a sys- 
tem, according to which monotheism and polytheism are 
made to embrace each other ; — a system, according to which 
the stoutest advocate for the unity of God may become the 
intrepid and consistent defender and worshipper of whole 
legions of deities of every rank and grade ; — a system, ac- 
cording to which the hosts of heaven — sun, moon, and stars— 
the great elements, ether, air, fire, water, and earth, as well 



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as the minutest individual particles of these — the animating 
principles of every species of organized being — herbs of the 
field and trees of the forest, fish of the sea and fowl of the 
air, cattle and every creeping thing, — all may be addressed as 
parts of the universal and sole-existing Brahm; and worship- 
ped with an homage, the same in kind, and differing only in 
degree, according as the respective objects may be the de- 
positories of portions of the divine essence, larger or smaller 
in quantity, grosser or more subtile in quality, from their re- 
lative position in the emanative series ; — a system, finally, 
according to which every individual may, in the selection of 
the object of worship, suit his own taste and inclination; and, 
under the patronage and protection of his favourite deity, 
may give the fullest scope, the most unbounded license, to 
every desire and propensity of his corrupt nature ! 

In order to secure the lowest species of reward in a future 
state of being,— that is, a higher step, or an improved condi- 
tion in the next birth, — there must be a careful performance 
of all the necessary duties peculiar to caste, and of many of 
the ordinary practices and ceremonies which constitute the 
popular system of idolatry. This is the reward after which 
multitudes of the people are satisfied to aspire. Conse- 
quently, all the days of their life are devoted to the perform- 
ance of the duties prescribed. 

But who can describe the number and variety of these 
duties l — Haughton's edition of the Institutes of Manu, the 
divine legislator of the Hindus, is a goodly quarto of four 
hundred pages, comprising the general system of duties, reli- 
gious and civil. Yet it can scarcely be said to exhibit a 
tithe of the summation of divinely prescribed duties that 
might be compiled out of the list of the sacred Shastras ? 
It is no figure of speech to say, that these duties are num- 
berless as the stars of heaven, — countless as the sand on 
the sea-shore for multitude. Indeed, the inquirer who 
strives to thread his way through a system so infinitely 
varied and complicated, is sure at almost every stage of his 



128 



progress, to find himself in the condition of the benighted 
traveller amid the interminable forest and tangled under- 
wood of a pathless, trackless, Indian jungle. It is, there- 
fore, utterly impossible in this place to rehearse even a frac- 
tional part of the amazing aggregate. Or, if it were not, 
still the reading of such details would prove as dull, dry, 
tedious, wearisome, and monotonous, as a journey across the 
Sunderbunds of Lower Bengal. All that can be done is, to 
point out some of the sources of the number and complexity ; 
— and in one or other of the departments, to furnish some 
details as specimens. 

If, indeed, a man were privileged to live through all the 
stages of existence ordinarily allotted to man, — and if, 
through all of these he were enabled, without intermission 
and without omission, to discharge all the duties peculiar to 
his class, he might, if of the lowest caste, aspire to a place 
in one of the mansions of the gods ; — if of a higher caste, 
he might ascend to " the most exalted of regions, and no 
more spring to birth in this lower world — and if of the 
highest of all, might attain absorption in the divine essence. 
But few can expect to live to the utmost limit of human 
life, — and no one dare venture to aim at and claim a perfect 
performance of all duties ? A very large proportion, even of 
the decent and respectable, must remain satisfied if they 
attain to that minimum performance which is enough to 
prevent their sinking lower in the next birth. Others, who 
wish for progress, labour to realize so much above the mini- 
mum as may give them a step in advance in the next birth. 
And between the minimum performance, — or that which is in- 
dispensable to prevent a man from sinking, — and the maxi- 
mum performance, which would raise a man to the highest 
reward attainable by his class, — the gradations are almost 
infinite. So that there is a boundless latitude for choice. 

Now, as each caste has its own distinct privileges and im- 
munities in life, — so has each its own separate, specific, and 
peculiar duties of every description. Hence, one of the 
principal sources of multiplicity and complexity in the Indian 
code of divinely revealed laws. 



129 



Again, in setting forth the duties of each class, the Indian 
code does not, like the Christian, seize on great, fundamen- 
tal, comprehensive principles, — and illustrating these with 
the clearness of heaven's light, and enforcing them with the 
sanction of heaven's Majesty, leave the practical application 
of them, through the varying changes of time and place, to 
the soul that is illumined with such divine knowledge. No. 
Unlike Christianity, which is all spirit and life, Hinduism is 
all letter and death. The Indian codes of divine law deal com- 
paratively little in general principles ; — they at once extend 
to all the accessaries and circumstantials of conduct, with a 
tenfold greater minuteness than Judaism ever knew — descend 
into the most insignificant " trivials and quadrivials" of life, 
— anticipate every varying event and circumstance, — and 
prescribe with rigid precision the correspondent varying 
form of ritual duty, whether personal or domestic, social 
or economical. Hence, another grand source of multiplicity 
and complexity. This feature indeed constitutes a striking 
peculiarity in the system of Hinduism. It not only incul- 
cates religious doctrines and rites, as well as moral precepts 
and observances, properly so called : — it descends into every 
conceivable position or relation in which a human being can 
by any possibility be situated,— and prescribes beforehand 
what he is to do, and how he is to do it. It circumscribes 
every event, every circumstance, every incident, in the life 
of man within the sphere of positive religious ordinance, or 
rather ceremonial law. 

In India, man is thus swathed and bandaged like an infant. 
There, like a child utterly incapable of acting or thinking for 
itself, does man continue to be treated all his days ;■ — being 
made to sleep or awake, to move or rest, to speak or be 
silent, to smile or look sad, to do or be done by, according 
to the will, reason, or caprice of an ignorant despotic legis- 
lator, believed to be divine. There, he is not a delegated 
representative of heaven's Lord, endowed with certain 
powers intellectual and moral, by the due exercise and ap- 
plication of which he may advance in knowledge, or excel in 
art, and attain to the true dignity of his nature. No. He 

I 



130 



is a mere automaton as directly impelled or restrained in 
every movement of soul and body, as a piece of organized 
but inert materialism by the hand that framed it. All the 
customs, manners, habits, and acts, however varied or mi- 
nute, frivolous or ridiculous, loathsome or vile, which can by 
any contingency constitute or characterize or accompany 
the isolated doings of an individual, — or the modes of inter- 
course, public or private, between man and man, — all are 
believed to be solemnly ordained of Grod. Every imaginable 
transaction of life, whether important or unimportant ; yea 
every function of animal nature, is enstamped by the pre- 
scription of religious observances. From the hour of birth 
to the moment of dissolution, man is not a divinely guided 
spirit, but a divinely regulated machine,— a machine, too, in 
perpetual motion. 

All imaginable duties, connected with all possible rela- 
tions, circumstances, and professions in life being thus di- 
vinely ordained, to prevent mistake or misconception on 
the part of the votary, who is striving to advance his posi- 
tion in the series of transmigrations, — it is clear that all the 
knowledge essential to the full discharge of all these duties, 
must be authoritatively revealed too. Hence, one of the 
main grounds for the necessity of revelation being the source 
of all science and art in India. If the application of gene- 
ral principles to particular cases in practice were in any cir- 
cumstances left to ignorant man, he might err in his ap- 
plication of them ; and thus transgress against the standard 
of an immutable rectitude. To prevent the possibility of 
such error, Brahma, the creator, infallibly revealed all the 
modes of practically applying science and art, down to details 
of infinitesimal minuteness. Again, if frail man might err 
in the practical application of distinctly revealed principles — 
it is clear he might err still more in his attempt to discover 
first principles, and in his efforts to elaborate these into sys- 
tems of science or art. Hence, out of kindness to man, the 
Divine Being made known also all the science and all the art, 
which are essential to enable him to occupy all the lawful 
professions in life, and to discharge aright all the multiplied 
duties belonging to each ; — so that, by such fulfilment of 



131 



duty, he might earn to himself a more elevated rank in the 
next stage of transmigration. Is a form of government 
necessary for the welfare of society ? The most perfect form 
has been established by God. Is a code of civil and crimi- 
nal jurisprudence indispensable ? A code has been divinely 
revealed, the most extensive in its application, the most 
complicated in its ramifications, the most minute in its 
decisions on all possible topics — that it ever entered the 
imagination of man to conceive. Is numeration, as the 
science of figure and number, requisite for commercial 
and other transactions? It was made known by God. 
Is geography useful ? Astronomy ? Chronology ? Medical 
science ? Metaphysics ? Mechanical arts ? The fine arts | 
— All, all that is really good and valuable, sound and or- 
thodox on these and all other subjects, has been revealed 
immediately by Brahma himself ; or mediately through saints, 
or sages, or incarnations of one or other of the gods. Is 
language necessary for human intercourse ? It was dictated 
by God. Is writing beneficial I It was taught by God. 
Grammar ? It was revealed by inspiration of God. 

In this way, man is made as dependent on heaven for 
his science and arts, his government and laws, the modes and 
manners of private and social being, as he is for the dogmas 
of his religious faith, and the complicated ritual of religious 
practice. His mind is allowed to be exercised, and his powers 
variously applied ; but all the objects for exercise, and all the 
modes of application are divinely predetermined. There is no 
room left for the free, and unfettered, and original forth-put- 
ting of his mental powers on any subjects connected either 
with heaven above, or earth beneath—on any subjects affect- 
ing his own immediate interests, individual or social, temporal 
or eternal. In all things he must be a humble learner — a 
careful copyist. In nothing is man left to be a discoverer, 
an inventor. On all possible subjects he is forestalled by 
heaven itself. And will man dare to add to or abstract from, 
alter or amend, aught that heaven has been pleased to 
reveal? He cannot, without incurring the charge of ir- 
reverence, impiety. It would be an impeachment of the 



132 



omniscience, high treason against the sovereignty and other 
perfections of heaven's Lord. To discover aught that is 
unknown in science, to invent aught that might be more 
useful in art, to devise aught for the better regulation of 
personal, domestic, or political economy; — all this is as much 
beyond the province of a rigidly orthodox Hindu, as the at- 
tempt to scale the empyrean heavens in his own unaided 
strength, and disclose to mortal gaze the most secret de- 
signs and counsels of the eternal, incomprehensible, Spirit. 

Does the Hindu ever feel this to be a state of degradation — 
of bondage and vassalage ? Quite the contrary. With him 
it is a source of unbounded gratulation. All being cast in 
the divine mould, — all must be perfection itself. It is, in 
his estimation, the glorious, the distinguishing prerogative 
of his nation to be possessed of the earliest, the most 
extensively minute, as well as the most perfect revelation of 
the divine mind. As to the redundancy of specific rules, 
and forms, and ceremonies connected with the discharge 
of every function of rational and animal nature, — the irk- 
someness in the ever-revolving round, at once evanishes be- 
fore the jubilant expectation of a proportionate reward. If 
he could perform all, he would be perfect ; and would attain 
to eternal beatitude. If he perform aught beyond what is 
barely necessary to prevent infraction of any of the essen- 
tial requisites of caste, he gains something when he reap- 
pears in another form on the stage of time. 

From these generalities, it is time to descend to more 
particular statements respecting the boundless range of 
observances that devolve on the separate castes — the perfor- 
mance of which, according to their amount, and consequent 
position in the graduated scale of excellence, insures a 
correspondent advance to the performer in his next birth. 
It is not indeed possible, without transcribing the whole of 
the Institutes of Manu, or Halhed's code of Gentoo law, or 
Oolebrooke's essays on the ceremonies of the Hindus, and 
other similar works, to obtain an adequate comprehension of 



133 



the subject % Still, though a perfect comprehension be unat- 
tainable, it may be practicable to convey some conception of 
their general character, from a specific observation of one or 
two of the leading sub-divisions. For this purpose, we may 
restrict ourselves to one of the castes, — the highest or Brah- 
manical, — and supply a few specimens of its peculiar ritual 
duties. 

Contemplating first those rites that may strictly and pro- 
perly be denominated religious, let us glance at some of the 
ordinary daily religious practices prescribed to a Brahman, 
as detailed by Colebrooke in the Asiatic Researches. 

When a Brahman rises from sleep in the morning, his 
first religious duty is to clean his teeth. This is a duty so 
sacred that the omission of it would incur the penalty of 
losing the benefit of all other rites performed by him. It 
consists in rubbing his teeth with a proper withe or twig, 
of the racemiferous fig tree, pronouncing to himself this 
prayer " Attend, Lord of the forest ; Soma, king of 
herbs and plants, has approached thee : mayest thou and 
he cleanse my mouth with glory and good auspices, that I 
may eat abundant food. Lord of the forest ! — grant me 
life, strength, glory, splendour, offspring, cattle, abundant 
wealth, virtue, knowledge, and intelligence." On certain 
days, when the use of the withe is forbidden, — that is, on 
the day of the conjunction, and on the first, sixth, and 
ninth days of each lunar fortnight, he must, as a substitute, 
rinse his mouth twelve times with water. 

His second duty is carefully to throw away the twig which 
has been used. It must, on no account, be deposited in 
any place tainted with any of those multiplied impurities 
or religious stains enumerated in the sacred writings. 

His third duty is religious ablution. This is a duty, the 
strict observance of which is fraught with efficacy in remov- 
ing not only corporeal but spiritual defilements. He may 
bathe with water drawn from a well, from a fountain, or 
from the basin of a cataract ; but he should prefer water 
which lies above ground, — choosing a stream rather than 
stagnant water ; a river in preference to a small brook ; a 



134 



holy stream before a vulgar river ; and, above all, the water 
of the Ganges. And, if the Ganges be beyond his reach, he 
should invoke that holy river, saying,— " Ganga, hear 
my prayers ; for my sake be included in this small quantity 
of water, with the other sacred streams." Then, standing 
in the river, or in other water, he must hallow his intended 
performance by the inaudible recitation of certain sacred 
texts. Next, sipping water, which is a grand preparatory to 
any act of religion, and sprinkling some before him, the 
worshipper throws water eight times on the crown of his 
head, on the earth, towards the sky; again towards the sky, 
on the earth, on the crown of his head ; once more on the 
earth, on the crown of his head ; and, lastly, on the ground 
to destroy the demons who wage war with the gods. Dur- 
ing the performance of this sacred act of ablution, he must 
be reciting these prayers : " waters ! since ye afford de- 
light, grant us present happiness, and the rapturous sight 
of the Supreme Being. Like tender mothers, make us here 
partakers of your most auspicious essence. We become 
contented with your essence, with which ye satisfy the uni- 
verse. Waters ! grant it to us." Immediately after this 
first ablution, he should sip water without swallowing it, 
silently praying in these words, — " Lord of sacrifice ! thy 
heart is in the midst of the waters of the ocean. May salu- 
tary herbs and waters pervade thee. With sacrificial hymns 
and humble salutation we invite thy presence. May this 
ablution be efficacious." These ceremonies and prayers 
being concluded, he plunges thrice into the water, each time 
repeating the prescribed expiatory texts. Last of all, he, in 
due form, washes his mantle ; and rising out of the water, 
thus terminates his morning ablution. 

Besides the prayers and texts from the Vedas and other 
sacred books, specifically intended for the different parts of 
all religious observances, there are certain recitations of pe- 
culiar efficacy which are constantly to be rehearsed throughout 
all the parts of all observances. Amongst those of most fre- 
quent occurrence, may be noticed the utterance of the names 
of the seven superior worlds ; the triliteral monosyllable AUM, 



135 



contracted OM, the symbol of the Triad; and the Gayatri, or 
holiest text of the Vedas, which, in one of its forms, has 
been thus translated,—" We meditate on the adorable light 
of the resplendent Generator, which governs our intellects." 

The fourth morning duty in immediate succession, in 
which the Brahman is called on to engage, is the important 
one of worshipping the rising sun. For discharging this 
duty aright, he must prepare himself by due ceremony and 
prayer. He begins by tying the lock of hair on the crown 
of his head, holding much cusa grass in his left, and three 
blades of the same grass in his right hand ; or wearing a 
ring of grass on the third finger of the same hand. During 
this ceremony he must recite the Gayatri. The sipping of 
water next occupies his attention ; as this is a requisite in- 
troduction of all rites, since without it all acts of religion 
are pronounced to be vain. Accordingly, he sips water 
three times, — each time repeating the mysterious names of 
the seven worlds and the Gayatri, — each time, also, rubbing 
his hands as if washing them ; and, finally, touching with 
his wet hand his feet, head, breast, eyes, ears, nose, and 
shoulders. After this, he must again sip water thrice, pro- 
nouncing to himself the prescribed expiatory texts. If, how- 
ever, he happen to sneeze or spit he must not immediately 
sip water, but first touch his right ear ; in compliance with 
the maxim — " after sneezing, spitting, blowing his nose, 
sleeping, putting on apparel, or dropping tears, a man 
should not immediately sip water, but first touch his right 
ear." The business of sipping being finished, he next passes 
his hand filled with water, briskly round his neck, reciting 
this prayer, — " May the waters preserve me." He then 
meditates with intense thought, and in the deepest silence. 
Meditates on what ?— on something peculiarly sacred and 
sublime, and correspondent with the awful solemnity of the 
occasion \ Let the hearers judge when they learn, that dur- 
ing this moment of intense devotion, he is striving to realize 
the fond imagination, that " Brahma, with four faces, and a 
red complexion, resides in his bosom; Vishnu, with four arms, 
and a black complexion, in his heart ; and, Shiva, with five 



136 



faces, and a white complexion, in his forehead !" To this sub- 
lime meditation succeeds a suppression of the breath, which is 
thus performed : Closing the left nostril, with the two longest 
fingers of his right hand, he draws his breath through the right 
nostril; and then closing that nostril likewise with his thumb, 
he holds his breath, while he internally repeats to himself the 
Gayatri, the mysterious names of the three worlds, the trilite- 
ral monosyllable, and the sacred text of Brahma; last of all, 
he raises both fingers off the left nostril, and emits the breath 
he had suppressed through the right. This process being 
repeated three several times, he must next make three ab- 
lutions, with the following prayer : — " As the tired man 
leaves drops of sweat at the foot of a tree ; as he who 
bathes is cleansed from all foulness ; as an oblation is sanc- 
tified by holy grass, — so may this water purify me from sin.' 1 
To this succeed other ablutions, with various expiatory texts. 
He must next fill the palm of his hand with water, and, 
presenting it to his nose, inhale the fluid by one nostril, and, 
retaining it for a while, exhale it through the* other, and 
throw away the water to the north-east quarter. This is 
considered as an internal ablution which washes away sin. 
He then concludes by sipping water with the following 
prayer : — " Water ! thou dost penetrate all beings ; thou 
dost reach the deep recesses of the mountains ; thou art the 
mouth of the universe ; thou art sacrifice ; thou art the mystic 
word vasha ; thou art light, taste, and the immortal fluid."" 
All the preparatory acts being thus concluded, he is now 
qualified to engage in the direct worship of the rising sun. 
To this most sacred and solemn duty he thus proceeds. 
Standing on one foot, and resting the other on his ankle or 
heel ; looking towards the east, and holding his hands open 
before him in a hollow form, he pronounces to himself the 
following prayers : — " The rays of light announce the splen- 
did fiery sun, beautifully rising to illumine the universe. He 
rises, wonderful, the eye of the sun, of water, and of fire, 
collective power of gods. He fills heaven, earth, and sky, 
with his luminous net ; he is the soul of all which is fixed 
or locomotive. That eye, supremely beneficial, rises purely 



137 



from the east ; may we see him a hundred years ; may we 
live a hundred years; may we hear a hundred years. May 
we, preserved by the divine power, contemplating heaven 
above the region of darkness, approach the deity, most 
splendid of luminaries. Thou are self-existent ; thou art the 
most excellent ray ; thou givest effulgence ; grant it unto 
me." These prayers being ended, the oblation or offering is 
next presented. It consists of tila, flowers, barley, water, and 
red sandal-wood, in a clean copper vessel, made in the shape 
of a boat. This the worshipper places on his head, present- 
ing it with the following holy texts : — " He who travels the 
appointed path, (viz. the sun) is present in that pure orb of 
fire, and in the etherial region. He is the sacrificer at re- 
ligious rites ; and he sits in the sacred close, never remain- 
ing a single day in the same spot, yet present in every house, 
in the heart of every human being, in the most holy man- 
sion, in subtile ether produced in water, in earth, in the 
abode of truth, and in the stony mountains ; he is that 
which is both minute and vast." The oblation is then con- 
cluded by worshipping the sun with the subjoined text : 
" His rays, the efficient causes of knowledge, irradiating 
worlds, appear like sacrificial fires." After the oblation fol- 
lows the invocation of the Gayatri, in these words : — " Thou 
art light ; thou art seed ; thou art immortal life ; thou art ef- 
fulgent ; beloved by the gods, defamed by none ; thou art the 
holiest sacrifice." It is afterwards recited measure by mea- 
sure ; then the two first measures as one hemistich, and the 
third measure as the other ; and lastly, the three measures 
without interruption. The same text is then invoked in these 
words : — " Divine text, who dost grant our best wishes, whose 
name is trisyllable, whose import is the power of the supreme 
being; come, thou mother of the Vedas, who didst spring from 
Brahma, be constant here." After this address, the Gayatri 
itself is pronounced inaudibly, along with the triliteral mono- 
syllable, and the names of the three lower worlds, a hundred 
or a thousand times ; or as often as may be practicable, — 
counting the repetitions on a rosary of gems set in gold, or of 
wild grains. To these repetitions are subjoined the following 



138 



prayers to the sun : " Salutation to the sun ; to that lumi- 
nary, Brahma, who is the light of the pervader, the true 
generator of the universe, the cause of efficacious rites. I 
bow to the great cause of day, the mighty luminary, the 
foe of darkness, the destroyer of every sin." Last of all, 
the worshipper walks towards the south, rehearsing a short 
text ; " I follow the course of the sun. ,, " As the sun in its 
course moves through the world by the way of the south, so 
do I, following that luminary, obtain the benefit arising from 
a journey round the earth, by the way of the south. ,, 

With the rehearsal of this text, terminates the daily 
morning ablution and worship of the sun. 

One might suppose that such ablutions and ceremonial 
observances were enough for one day. But no. By one 
order of Brahmans, similar ablutions and worship of the sun 
must be renewed at noon ; and by a higher order, loth at 
noon and in the evening. In these <?ases the accompanying 
ceremonies are the same in spirit and substance as those 
already detailed, — differing only somewhat in the words 
and forms, — every day in the year. 

Nor is this all. With very few exceptions, indeed, a 
Brahman, who is an householder, must daily perform those 
religious duties which are denominated " the five great sacra- 
ments. 11 These are the following: — Teaching and study- 
ing the scripture is the sacrament of the Vedas, or rather of 
the divine sages who are honoured by studying the Vedas, 
Vedangas or sacred poems, and other branches of sound 
literature. Offering cakes and water, is the sacrament of 
the Manes, or departed ancestors, progenitors of mankind 
generally. An oblation to fire, with prayers addressed to the 
celestial pantheon, is the sacrament of the Deities. Offering 
rice and other food to all animated creatures, is the sacra- 
ment of Spirits. Receiving any of the higher castes with 
hospitable rites, is the sacrament of Men. Shall we attempt 
to describe these at length ? We doubt not from the speci- 
men already furnished, that such an attempt would be re- 
garded as of all tasks the most ungrateful. Here then we 
must pause. It were as endless as it is needless to pursue the 



139 



subject of daily religious rites and forms into farther de- 
tails. 

It were needless, because our present design is not to ex- 
haust any department, but simply to adduce so much in the 
way of detail as may suggest a tolerable conception of the 
general character of a subject. Besides, of all the distinct 
sets of religious ceremonies, it may truly be affirmed, that 
they bear a strong mutual generic resemblance. There 
must indeed enter into all the separate services, some pecu- 
liar forms, and rites, and texts, and prayers, to characterize 
and distinguish them from the rest. Still there is enough 
common to all, to constitute a general similarity of aspect. 

They mutually differ in contexture and appearance much 
in the same way that one tangled forest may be said to differ 
from another. In the latter case, each may have its own 
distinct peculiarity of local site — low or elevated, rough or 
smooth, flat or undulating, level or steep, plain or moun- 
tainous. Each may embrace within its domain, one or more 
distinct species of trees and shrubs, weeds and flowers. 
Of the progeny of each belonging to the same species, there 
may be no end to variety in growth, and size, and compar- 
ative luxuriance — no end to variety as to number, relative 
position, and fantastic grouping. And yet, with all this, 
there is so much of actual sameness in the species that are 
alike ; and so much of apparent sameness, as to trunks and 
bark, branches and leaves, stems and blossoms, in those 
that differ, — that the two, in their aggregate aspect, may be 
said to exhibit a general resemblance. 

So it is with different sets of religious ceremonies in India. 
Each may be characterized by its peculiar outward rites and 
mechanical movements, and sacrificial ablutions, and texts, 
and invocations, and prayers, — and all of these in such form 
as may be adapted to the specific objects intended. Of the 
parts in each that may be substantially alike, there may be 
no end to variety as to order, and sequence, and modification, 
and combination, and transposition of parts. And yet, with 
all this, there is so much of actual sameness in some portions ; 
and so much of apparent sameness in the spirit and substance 



140 



of those that are dissimilar, that, in their aggregate aspect, 
they may be said to exhibit a striking general resemblance. 

There is, in almost all of them, an eternal ringing of 
changes on certain motions, utterances, and substances. 
There are sippings, and washings, and bathings, and sprink- 
lings ; standings and sittings, walkings and turnings in every 
conceivable position and direction ; touchings and smellings 
of various auspicious things ; rubbings of the teeth, and 
rinsings of the mouth ; changings of apparel, and anoint- 
ings of the head with fragrant oil ; deckings with strung and 
unstrung blossoms, and wreaths and garlands of flowers ; 
perfumings with sandal wood, saffron and aloe wood ; gather- 
ings of dust, and scatterings of leaves ; drawings of lines on 
the ground, and smearings with clay, barley, meal, and cow 
dung ; kindlings of fires and suspendings of lamps to repel 
evil spirits ; shiftings of threads, and hallowed ladles, and 
other sacrificial implements ; coverings and uncoverings of 
earthen, brazen, and copper vessels ; spreadings and bund- 
lings of cum grass in every imaginable form ; compoundings 
of balls or cakes of rice, with fruits, honey, sugar, roots, and 
pot-herbs ; offerings of rice dressed and unboiled, condi- 
ments, water, milk, curds, and clarified butter ; namings of 
the three worlds and of the seven worlds ; repeatings of the 
mysterious triliteral monosyllable Aum; recitings of the 
holiest of texts — the Gayatri ; mystic suppressions of the 
breath with the thumb and fore fingers, and intense inward 
meditations ; adorations the most multiform of elements, 
planets, and constellations ; invocations, numerous almost 
beyond reckoning, of the sacred Triad, and assembled gods, 
and divine sages, progenitors, and, in fine, all animated be- 
ings in the heavens, on the earth, and in the realms below. 
These are the leading component parts or constituent ele- 
ments of the great sacraments, and other stated religious 
observances ; — but varied or modified, expanded, curtailed, 
divided, multiplied, combined or transposed, in forms so 
multitudinous as almost to border on infinity. It is as if the 
whole of these primary elements were tossed into a huge 
kaleidoscope, and kept ever revolving : — at every revolution, 



141 



reproducing the same substantial elements, but under new 
aspects as to arrangement, and grouping, and configuration ; 
— and so onwards through every additional gyration, with- 
out limit and without end. 

That this is no exaggerated statement may further appear, 
when we state that the rites and ceremonies attendant on the 
major part of the five great daily sacraments, are vastly 
more minute, intricate, and numerous, than those that ac- 
company the morning ablution and worship of the sun, 
already briefly described ! Judge, then, of what the aggre- 
gate must be ! Hence, the reason of the remark that it 
were endless to attempt to rehearse all these details. Nor 
is this all. It is not even a moiety of the great whole. To 
these daily religious duties, must be added a multitude of 
other rites and ceremonies which must be performed monthly, 
on certain canonical days, regulated by the age of the moon. 
To these again must be appended numerous rites and cere- 
monies which must be performed annually, on certain solemn 
days that depend on the position and progress of the sun 
through the signs of the Zodiac. 

Even here the subject is not exhausted. What will be 
thought when, to the preceding mass of ordinary duties, 
there must be subjoined another series of religious observ- 
ances of indispensable obligation — observances which must 
be duly celebrated at certain marked periods or epochs along 
the different stages of human life ; more particularly on the 
occasion of births, marriages, and funerals. Still more, 
what will be thought, when it is affirmed that some of these, 
such as the ceremonies prescribed for marriage, are vastly 
more minute, tiresome, multifarious than all the daily cere- 
monies put together? Farther yet, what will be thought 
when it is declared that others, such as those allotted to 
funerals, are, in point of variety and number, more exorbi- 
tant and oppressive than any hitherto named ? Above all, 
what will be thought when it is added that these latter, in 
forms more or less abridged, must be repeated, as formal 
commemorative obsequies, on the day of new moon, on the 
dates of the fourteen manwantaras, and of the four yugadyas; 



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that is, on the anniversaries of the accession of the four- 
teen Manus, and of the commencement of the four ages, and 
on other specified occasions, — amounting altogether to no 
less than ninety-six times in every year ! And to crown the 
whole, what will be thought, when it is added that all this 
vast and interminable mass of ordinary religious duty is en- 
tirely exclusive of the huge and complicated ceremonial sys- 
tem of rites, and offerings, and adorations before images and 
idols ; so constantly celebrated in honour of one or other of 
the principal gods, by their respective votaries ! — Surely 
the religious records of all the people of all countries, and of 
all ages, cannot furnish a parallel to this ! 

Prodigious as is the ordinary round of daily, monthly, and 
yearly duties of an exclusively religious character ; the cata- 
logue is not half exhausted. The domain of religious prescrip- 
tion becomes indefinitely enlarged from the divinely revealed 
forms, injunctions, and restrictions which are inseparably as- 
sociated with every conceivable event and incident of life. 

Look, for example, at the young Brahman as a child. 
When he is first made to partake of nourishment after birth ; 
when, on some fortunate day of the moon, at a lucky hour, 
and under the influence of a star with good qualities, a com- 
pound name is given to him— the first part of which must he 
indicative of holiness and the second of prosperity ; when he 
is first carried out with due formality to see the sun ; when 
he is first made to partake of rice ; when he is first invested 
with the sacred or triple thread which constitutes him one 
of the twice-horn or perfect Brahmans ; — on these and many 
other similar occasions, sacred texts must be pronounced, 
and various religious ceremonies performed. 

Again, look at the young Brahman, when growing in 
years he commences the reading of the sacred books, or 
becomes what Manu designates a " student of theology." 
The first business of the student is to provide himself with 
a mantle, girdle, staff, and other personal apparatus ;— the 
materials of which these are made, and their respective 
shapes and forms being all minutely and rigidly prescribed 
by sacred ordinance. Thus, the legal staff, " made of the 



143 



canonical wood, must be of such a length as to reach the 
student's hair ; straight ; without fracture ; of a handsome 
appearance ; not likely to terrify men ; with its bark perfect, 
and unhurt by fire." When any or all of these personal ac- 
coutrements become worn or broken, in casting them away, 
care must be taken that they be thrown into water, — and 
others immediately received, after being hallowed with mys- 
tical texts. Then follow directions the most minute, as to 
the time, mode, and manner of conducting his studies, — 
when, where, and how he is to sleep, to sit, to stand, to 
walk abroad, — with numberless other circumstances. 

When the discipline of a Brahman, in his first order 
which is that of a student, has duly terminated, he may next 
enter upon his second order, which is that of a married man 
or householder. Then he is strictly enjoined to espouse, as 
his first wife, an individual of the same class with himself, 
and endued with the marks of excellence. Farther, after 
detailing the families whom he must studiously avoid ; even 
within his own class, he is next told the precise description 
of persons with whom he is to connect himself; — and this, 
both in the positive and negative forms. He is enjoined to 
espouse for his wife, " a girl, whose form has no defects ; who 
has an agreeable name ; who walks gracefully like a pheni- 
copteros ; or like a young elephant ; whose hair and teeth 
are moderate, respectively in quantity and in size." He is 
strictly prohibited to marry " a girl with reddish hair, or 
with any deformed limb ; or one troubled with habitual sick- 
ness ; or one, either with no hair, or with too much ; or one 
immoderately talkative ; or one with inflamed eyes ; or one 
with the name of a constellation, or of a river, of a barbarous 
nation, or of a mountain, of a winged creature, of a snake, 
or a slave ; or with any name raising an image of terror." 

These injunctions and restrictions being duly attended to, 
and the nuptial ceremonies duly celebrated, the Brahman 
is now installed into the second order of his class, or that of 
a householder. This new status in society involves a new 
system of religious duties and other observance ; attended 
by authoritative injunctions and inhibitions. It is now that 



144 



the morning ablutions, accompanied with prayers and acts 
of devotion, and the morning worship of the sun, and the 
five great sacraments must be daily performed ; and all the 
other stated rites and commemorative obsequies must be 
periodically celebrated. 

As to other matters connected with the ordinary rou- 
tine of life, — copious as are the directions divinely reveal- 
ed for the regulation of the habits and manners of the Brah- 
man when a student of theology, — those addressed to him in 
his new capacity as a householder, are multiplied manifold. 
Though he has ceased to be a student by profession, he must 
not relinquish the statedperusal of the Vedas and other books, 
— preceded andfollowed by religious forms divinely prescribed. 
Only the perusal is now guarded by numberless fresh restric- 
tions. It must not take place in a pasture for kine, near a ce- 
metery, in water, in a boat, on horseback, on a tree, or where 
an offensive smell pre vails, — in a carriage, nor any impure place, 
or in a town beset by robbers, — with many more : — nor in cer- 
tain postures and states of the body, such as lolling on a couch, 
or with the feet raised on a bench, or with the limbs crossed, 
or having lately swallowed meat, nor with indigestion, nor 
after vomiting, nor with sour eructations, and many more : 
— nor in certain days and hours, such as the dark twilights, 
the conjunction or dark lunar day, the opposition or bright 
lunar day, nor on the 8th or 14th day of the moon ; by night 
when the wind meets the ear, by day when the dust is col- 
lected, with many more : — nor during the occurrence of cer- 
tain natural phenomena, such as thunder, lightning, in rain, 
on the occasion of any preternatural sound from the sky, of 
an earthquake ; or when the dragon's head causes an eclipse, 
or any other obscuration of the heavenly bodies, with many 
more : — nor, after certain incidents, such as the yelling of 
jackals, the barking or yelping of dogs, the braying of asses 
or camels, the chattering of a company of men, &c. &c. If he 
be a preceptor, and if in the course of a lecture, anybeast used 
in agriculture, a frog, a cat, a dog, a snake, an ichneumen, 
or a rat, pass between himself and his pupils, it is enjoined 
that the lecture be intermitted for a day and a night, &c. 



145 



As to acts of which his own person is the object, many 
are wholly forbidden. He must not strike his own arm ; nor 
gnash his teeth ; nor make a braying noise, though agitated 
by passion. He must never cut his own hair or nails, nor 
tear his own nails with his teeth, nor stroke his own head 
with both hands, nor even touch it while food remains in his 
mouth. — As to domestic actions, many are forbidden. He 
must not eat with his own wife ; nor look at her eating, or 
sneezing, or yawning, or sitting carelessly at her ease, or set- 
ting off her eyes with black powder, or scenting herself with 
essences. He must not blow the fire with his mouth, nor 
throw any thing foul into it, nor warm his feet in it, nor 
stride over it, nor place it in a chafing dish under his 
bed. He must not sleep with his feet wet, nor sleep alone 
in an empty house, nor wake a sleeping man superior to 
himself, nor wash his feet in a pan of mixed yellow metal, 
nor put on slippers or any thing else before used by another. 
— Is he abroad ?— and does he for an instant stand still ? 
He must avoid standing upon hair, or ashes, or bones, or 
potsherds, or seeds of cotton, or husks of grain. Or does he 
rest any where ? He must not remain even under the shade 
of a tree with outcasts, or idiots, or washermen, or other vile 
persons. Or does he propose to tarry from home for a longer 
space of time ? He must not inhabit a town in which civil and 
religious duties are neglected ; nor, for a length of time, 
one in which diseases are frequent ; nor one governed by a 
Shudra king ; nor one surrounded with men unobservant 
of their duties ; nor one abounding with professed here- 
tics ; nor one swarming with low-born outcasts ; nor must 
he reside long on a mountain. — When abroad, does it hap- 
pen to rain ? He must not run. Does he see in the sky a 
rainbow ? He must not show it to any one. Does he behold 
a cow drinking ? He must not interrupt her. Does he enter 
a pasture of kine I He must hold out his right arm uncovered. 
In his perambulations, does he approach running or stand- 
ing water \ He must not cast into it any saliva, or cloth, 
or any other thing soiled with impurity or blood, or any 
kind of poison. Is his image reflected in it ? He must not 

K 



146 



gaze at it. Is there in his path a string to which a calf is 
tied ; He must not step over it ; nor must he voluntarily 
pass over the shadow of sacred images, or of a Brahman, or 
of a red haired man. Does he come to a mound of earth, a 
cow, an idol, a pot of clarified butter or of honey, a place 
where two ways meet, or large trees well known in the dis- 
trict ? He must carefully pass by, with his right hand to- 
ward them. Does he travel otherwise than on foot ? He 
must not do so with untrained beasts of burden ; nor with 
such as are oppressed with hunger or disease ; nor with such 
as have imperfect horns, eyes, or hoofs ; nor with such as 
have ragged tails ; nor must he ride on the back of a bull 
or cow ; nor must he pass a river swimming with his arms. 

But the most inexhaustible themes by far are those of 
purification and diet. On these, therefore, it is not possible 
to enter. As to diet, the injunctions are so numerous and 
so varied that they constitute a code which might pass for 
a complete work on domestic cookery. The peculiarity, how- 
ever, which distinguishes the Hindu system from any of our 
modern approved volumes on the subject, is, that whereas 
the latter embody only the results of human experience, and 
are obtruded on public favour by the weight of human re- 
commendation ; the former professes to embody the know- 
ledge and will of the Creator ; and is therefore enforced by 
divine authority. 

The lawful hours for the daily meals, the places where 
food must not be eaten, the persons with whom the repast 
may be, and those with whom it may not be shared, are all 
specified in detail. Directions no less particular are given 
respecting the mode in which the Brahman is to partake of 
his daily meals. After washing his hands and feet, and sip- 
ping water without swallowing it, he sits down on a stool or 
cushion, but not on a couch nor on a bed, before his plate, 
which must be placed on a clean spot of ground, that has 
been wiped and smoothed in a quadrangular form. When 
the food is first brought in he is required to bow to it, 
raising both hands in the form of humble salutation to his 
forehead ; and he should add, " May this be alwavs ours ; ' 



147 



that is, may food never be deficient. When he has sitten 
down, he should lift the plate with his left hand, and bless 
the food, saying, "Thou art invigorating." He sets it 
down, naming the three worlds ; or, if the food be handed 
to him, he says, " May heaven give thee; 1 ' and then ac- 
cepts it with these words, " The earth accepts thee." Be- 
fore he begins eating, he must move his hand round the 
plate, to insulate it ; he must also, with his hand, trace a 
line all around, and consecrate the circle by appropriate 
texts; — for what purpose? — to insulate his person during 
the meal, lest it should be contaminated by the touch of 
some undetected sinner who may be present, or who might 
intrude ! He next consummates the consecration of the 
food, by making five oblations out of it to Brahma and 
other gods — dropping each oblation on fire, or on water, or 
on the ground, with the usual addition, " May this oblation 
be efficacious. " He sips and swallows water ; he makes 
five oblations to breath by its five distinct names; — and 
lastly, he wets both eyes. These important and indispen- 
sable preliminaries being ended, he may now proceed to 
partake of his repast ; but he must proceed in solemn 
silence, lifting the food with the fingers of his right hand. 
After the eating is finished, he again sips water ; and con- 
cludes the whole by saying, " Ambrosial fluid, thou art the 
couch of Vishnu, and of food." 

After such a statement of details — details referring only 
to one of the castes — and the statement might be extended 
indefinitely — who is not ready to admit the significance of 
the assertion that in India all the conceivable acts, incidents, 
and events in life, are cast in a religious mould — by being 
inseparably associated with divinely promulgated rites and 
ceremonies — as well as ordinances directive, prescriptive, 
restrictive, or prohibitory ? 

But it will be said that such universality of observance 
and obedience is, in the nature of things, impossible ; and 
that the code which comprehends and enjoins it, from being 
in so many of its parts impracticable, must become obsolete, 
— its commands nugatory ; — that its directions must drop 



148 



into desuetude. By no means. There is ample provision 
in the code itself to guard against such a consummation. 
And the nature of this provision tends only to illustrate 
and confirm what has been represented as the spirit and 
genius of Hinduism. 

It does not seem to have entered into the mind of Manu 
himself that any one man, far less any large class of men, 
could ever exhibit a life of perfect obedience. But that 
matters not. Unlike the rigour of a righteous and inflexible 
law, which says, " He who offends in one point, is guilty of all, 
— the spirit of Hinduism is, " He who offends in one point, 
loses only the special benefit accruing from obedience in 
that particular, and suffers only the penalty incurred by 
disobedience in that one particular." For such failure 
affects not at all the merit of obedience in other points. 

There is a graduated scale of rewards reaching through 
a countless series of future births on earth, up through 
the regions of nether space, and beyond these into the 
highest heavens. Every man may select his own — and la- 
bour to attain it. And as the gradations are infinite — 
the variety of share is infinite too. If a man should aim 
at the highest, and discharge all the performances necessary 
to obtain it, he will be sure to become its happy possessor. 
But, if he come short of his aim, his labour will not be 
thrown away ; he will obtain whatever is due to his real 
merit, though it may be far below what he aspired to. 
Hence the marvellous versatility of the system. It has self- 
adjusting powers which adapt it to all varieties of taste and 
character. A maximum performance will reach the highest 
point, — a minimum performance will prevent at least de- 
gradation either in the present or in the next birth. Be- 
tween these extremes, the gradations of excess above the 
minimum, entitling to a corresponding advancement in the 
next birth, are beyond the reach of number or of name. 

Let us illustrate this by a few examples. Look at the 
morning ablution. To omit it altogether, except from una- 
voidable causes, such as stress of weather, or bodily infir- 
mities, might lead to various forfeitures in this life, and 



149 



would inevitably incur degradation in the next. At the 
same time, full license is allowed to any man to curtail 
the service at his own pleasure. If, for instance, urgent 
business should require his early attendance, he may abridge 
the ceremonies, according to his own will, and use fewer 
prayers. The greatest possible abridgement consistent with 
its being practised at all, is what we have termed a mini- 
mum performance ; and would, as far as this religious duty is 
concerned, save the performer from future degradation. A 
larger performance would entitle to a step in advance ; and 
the fullest performance to the highest reward. 

Look, again, at the five great sacraments. To entitle to 
the highest reward, all of these ought to be performed daily 
in their fullest detail. And those who do so, or aim at so 
doing, are said to keep the five fires constantly blazing, or 
maintain a perpetual fire. But from the multitude of the 
ceremonies it must be clear, that to perform them all, and 
that too every day, would engross the larger proportion of 
any man's time. How, then, are the general functions of 
society to be discharged ? Here is the expedient. Those 
who are engaged in the different pursuits and affairs of life, 
and even those who follow exclusively the regular sacerdotal 
profession, may, if they so please, greatly abbreviate these 
daily religious duties. To expedite the matter, and pro- 
vide against sinful omission, there is an abbreviated form 
actually provided by the condescending kindness of the di- 
vinity. In this form all the daily sacraments are compressed 
into one ceremony, (called Vaiswadeva,) of not greater 
length than the average of any one of them when performed 
in detail. And to accommodate to the utmost those who wish 
to remain satisfied with the minimum performance, even 
this comprehensive but compendious ceremony may be sub- 
jected to farther abridgement ; and that again to farther 
curtailment still of some of the less essential parts. It 
must, however, be borne in mind that every such abridge- 
ment, be it larger or smaller, is not to be regarded as 
" the alleviation of a burthen," but as " the restriction of a 
privilege." Exactly as in the case of the " morning ablu- 



150 



ticn," a minimum performance will save from future degra- 
dation, so far as this rite is concerned : — while every addi- 
tional performance necessarily involves an accession of 
merit, which will not fail of its corresponding meed in the 
ascending scale of reward. 

The same principle of latitude, license, and choice, is more 
or less applicable to all religious duties. They all admit of 
being variously abbreviated, without, in consequence, incur- 
ring the penalty of positive degradation either in this world or 
the next. In other words, there may be numberless omissions 
as to minor parts, such as forms, offerings, prayers, and 
ceremonies, which entail no forfeiture beyond the non-obtain- 
ment of the promised reward. But this principle does not bear 
upon exclusively religious duties alone. It is a principle of 
universal application. Look, for example, to the enormous 
catalogue of injunctions and restrictions appended to every 
ordinary action, event, and incident of human life. Many 
of these must be attended to under the severest penalties. 
Others may be disregarded without positive loss, or without 
a diminution of reward accruing from other services. Some 
discountenanced acts may be committed ; some recommend- 
ed acts may be omitted, — with what result ? The non-com- 
mission of the former, and the non-omission of the latter 
would entitle to correspondent reward, — varying in excellence 
and degree, according to the nature of the acts. In either 
case, the non-commission or the non-omission, is simply at- 
tended with the loss of the rewards severally affixed. Should 
any man make up his mind to relinquish the reward, he may 
do so, if he pleases, with perfect impunity in other respects. 
Accordingly, with large classes of men, many of the more 
minute injunctions and prohibitions, or those relating to 
minor acts and occurrences, have become practically obso- 
lete : — while scarcely any one can be said to aim at the per- 
fect observance of them all. Still this does not, by one 
iota, impair the divinely obligatory nature of the system as 
a whole. It still remains the perfect standard of obedience. 
All are recommended to aim at reaching it, for the sake of the 
reward. They who aspire to any reward, must labour to 



151 



earn it by the necessary performance. But if they seek not, 
or care not about the highest meed ; if they make up their 
minds to forego it, they may aim at an inferior recompense, 
and labour accordingly. If they choose to relinquish even the 
inferior reward, they may still farther abridge the minor du- 
ties, without incurring positive guilt, or entailing degrada- 
tion in the next birth. 

Hence arises one cause of the apparent discrepancies, diver- 
sities, and contrarieties, in the actual religious observances 
of millions who, with unwavering stedfastness, profess to ad- 
here to the same standards of faith and practice. Were a 
stranger suddenly introduced among the people, he is ever 
apt to feel lost and bewildered amid the inconceivable mul- 
tiplicity and variety of religious observances practised before 
his eyes. How then must his perplexity increase till it sink 
into despair, when to endless variety he finds superadded an 
apparently endless diversity ! After having attained, as 
he thinks, the comprehension of some ordinance as seen 
daily celebrated by one with whose countenance he has be- 
come familiar, he turns to another. He is again staggered, 
— from the inversion of some parts, the omission, addition, 
or variation of others, it seems to present the aspect of a 
different ordinance altogether : — and so, with a third, and a 
fourth — onwards almost without end. He is now apt to 
give up the task as hopeless. The whole presents the ap- 
pearance of an inextricable maze, — an all-encompassing la- 
byrinth without a clew. And yet, were he just to take into 
his hands any one of the established standards of Hindu faith, 
and to carry along with him the latitudinarian principle now 
described, — apportioning suitable rewards to performances of 
every degree, along a scale of almost infinite dimensions, — he 
would find the maze traversed from end to end, by a straight 
and broad highway which invited the most bewildered pas- 
senger; — he would find the labyrinth provided with a clew to 
guide him at eVery one of its innumerable turnings. 

So much for ordinary observances, the constant per- 



152 



formance of a certain amount of which is indispensable to 
guard against loss of caste in this life, and degradation in 
the next birth ; and the constant performance of a larger 
amount of which may insure distinction now and exaltation 
hereafter. But multitudes aim at something higher. They 
aspire to be promoted to some region or heaven of bliss be- 
yond this world of endless transmigration. The realization 
of this object of loftier ambition, is placed entirely within 
their reach. Towards its attainment there are two distinct 
ways pointed out by divine authority ; either or both of 
which may be pursued. These are, first, a peculiar devot- 
edness to the service and worship of one or other of the 
principal deities, — each of whom has a separate heaven 
for himself, into which he may admit his faithful vota- 
ries ; and secondly, the performance of works of extraor- 
dinary merit, which are delineated at great length in the 
sacred Shastras. 

In the general ritual there are formulas for worshipping 
particular divinities separately and individually, — others con- 
jointly in groups and classes variously combined, — or all the 
millions of them collectively in one huge assemblage. As 
every department of nature and every function of life has 
its guardian deity, such deity may be addressed by any one, 
at any time, or on any occasion, for the accomplishment of 
specific ends. Thus, the god of riches may be petitioned 
for wealth, the goddess of fertility for abundant herbage, — 
and so, in like manner, other deities for beauty, strength, 
skill, recovery from sickness, long life, a well-stored house, 
a plentiful table, and every other conceivable variety of tem- 
poral blessings. There are deities, however, who are not 
absolutely confined to any single province or department 
in the great system of the universe. Some have a narrower 
and some a wider range and latitude of superintendence and 
dominion. Hence originates the endless diversity as to the 
degree of reverence in which they are held, as well as to the 
frequency and fulness of the forms and modes of their wor- 
ship. Some have temples exclusively dedicated to themselves, 
with images, sacrifices bloody and unbloody, burnt and drink- 



153 



offerings, daily worship, and annual festivals. Others, with- 
out being honoured with temples, have images and daily wor- 
ship and annual festivals. Some, without public temples or 
annual festivals, have images and daily worship. Others, 
without temples, annual festivals, or images, are yet daily 
worshipped. And some, whose images are not fashioned, 
are yet regularly worshipped through the medium of appro- 
priate symbols. 

As the gods exhibit every variety of character, there is, 
as might be anticipated, a correspondent variety in the rites 
and ceremonies which constitute their worship. Their his- 
tory, alas ! is often a mere tissue of vice and villainy. They 
quarrel and fight among themselves, kicking and beating 
one another, — at one time knocking out a tooth or an eye, 
and then cutting off a head, or an arm, or some other mem- 
ber of the body. Some of them are found pouring out im- 
precations and curses when thwarted in their mischievous 
plans and plots. Others are greatly addicted to theft, and 
murder, and licentiousness; — and, after having violated every 
commandment in the second table of the Decalogue, they 
are next found engaged in inventing all manner of lying 
tales to screen their own roguish tricks and abominable 
transgressions. Never did a people more thoroughly suc- 
ceed in feigning and fabricating gods " altogether like unto 
themselves; " — and, being once feigned and fabricated, these 
same gods become in turn the patrons of evil in every form 
in which it can possibly manifest itself in hearts that " are 
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Are 
there deities who patronize vice of the grossest description ? 
They must have their own peculiar emblems and rites. 
Hence it is that their votaries do religiously indulge in 
secret orgies and abominations, which, in a Christian land, 
would make many a hackneyed profligate to shudder. — Hence 
too the annual dedication, at the Indian temples, of thousands 
and tens of thousands of unhappy beings, who, under the 
designation of " the wives of the god," are taught both by 
parents and priests to regard themselves as his special fa- 
vourites ; — being privileged, by means of their arts and blan- 



154 



dishinents, to increase the number of his votaries, and thus to 
engage and perpetuate his favour and protection ; — so that 
wantonness is diffused under the warrant of divine authority ; 
licentiousness is legitimated as religious worship ; and the 
oblations of moral pollution actually consecrated as acts of 
devotional homage. Are there deities who delight in cruelty 
and blood \ They, too, must have their peculiar emblems 
and rites. Hence it is that, in honour of them, and in or- 
der to purchase their favour, such numbers of deluded 
votaries are constantly found engaged in practices the most 
cruel and sanguinary. — Hence the nameless variety of self- 
inflicted tortures which annually disgrace the festival of the 
goddess Kali. — Hence the crushing of miserable victims be- 
neath the wheels of the car of the idol Juggernath. The 
same remark applies to a catalogue of other deities too ex- 
tensive and loathsome to be enumerated. 

As might be expected, those independent deities who are 
believed to possess and exercise the greatest power over the 
affairs of this lower world, — particularly those who have their 
own separate celestial abodes, and who are enabled to hold 
out the prospect of a heavenly inheritance as the recom- 
pense of zealous and devoted services: — these are the deities 
who necessarily draw forth the largest share of adoration 
and homage; and who divide among themselves, as worship- 
pers, the larger moiety of the millions of India. Hence the 
origin of that immense variety of sects which abound in 
India ; — sects whose numbers vary from thousands to millions; 
— sects whose denomination is. derived from the name of 
their favourite divinity; — sects who — in devoting themselves 
more peculiarly to the worship of one tutelary god, and in con- 
tending, it may be, for his superiority, if not supremacy over 
the rest — yet acknowledge the gods of all other sectaries as 
worthy of adoration and homage. The members of the Hindu 
Triad being allowed by common consent to be pre-eminent 
in power and glory, they naturally, with their consorts, at- 
tract the greatest numbers of votaries, and the largest amount 
of reverence. Though Brahma be still considered as the 
head of the Triad, — his special functions being regarded 



155 



as confined chiefly to the original production of all or- 
ganized and animated beings, — and as now kept in reserve 
for the formation and peopling of future worlds, — the active 
worship of him has very much fallen into practical desuetude. 
The conservative, destructive, and reproductive powers of 
Vishnu and Shiva, on the other hand, continue to be per- 
manently exercised throughout the whole course and pro- 
gress of mutation, onwards to the final destruction of the 
visible universe. These divinities, accordingly, with their 
consorts, secure at all times the greatest amount of practi- 
cal homage ; and their sects abound more in number than 
any other of the sects of India. Into the detail of the 
countless rites, ceremonies, and offerings which constitute 
their worship, we cannot enter ; — the more especially, as in 
a following chapter ample specimens will be furnished from 
ocular observation. The main point on which, at present, 
we wish to fasten attention is, that these superior gods are 
intensely adored and honoured with multiplied forms of 
worship, not from any generous emotions of gratitude and 
love. No : all forms of prayer and praise, — all sacrifices 
and offerings, — all rites and observances whatsoever, — all 
are reiterated, times and ways without number, merely as the 
adulations of flattery to please, gratify, and humour the di- 
vinities; — or, as gifts and presents, to allure and bribe them 
into compliance with the petitioner's requests; — or, lastly, and 
chiefly, as acts of acknowledged merit which lay them under 
positive obligation to admit the votary to a participation of the 
sensuous enjoyments which characterise their respective heavens ! 

Besides those forms of homage and rites of worship which 
bind the gods to admit their faithful votaries to a participa- 
tion of their own celestial bliss, there are other acts, which, 
though isolated and often wholly unconnected with the general 
scheme of devotion, are yet declared to possess such extra- 
ordinary merit, as to entitle the performer to an entrance 
into one or other of the heavens of the gods. Amongst the 
meritorious acts of this description which continue to the pre- 
sent time to be practised by millions of the deluded people of 
India, may be specified the following : — Fastings, frequent, 



156 

long-continued, and accompanied by various meditative ex- 
ercises : — the presenting of gifts to the Brahmans, such as 
a valuable piece of land, cows, horses, or elephants, large 
sums of silver or of gold, houses well stored with food, 
clothes, -and utensils : — the honouring of Brahmans with 
feasts, which are replenished with all manner of rare deli- 
cacies and expensive luxuries : — readings and recitations 
of portions of the Mahabharat and other Shastras, on auspi- 
cious days ; and rehearsals for weeks or months together of 
those legends which embody the histories of their gods, ac- 
companied with dancings and wavings of brushes, and the 
jinglings of rings, and the noises of instrumental music : — 
the digging of public wells, or tanks, or pools of water " to 
quench the thirst of mankind the building of public 
ghauts or flights of steps along the banks of rivers, to assist 
the faithful in their ablutions ; the planting and consecrat- 
ing of trees to afford a shade, and of groves to furnish re- 
freshment to holy pilgrims; the repairing of old temples, 
or the erecting of new, in honour of the gods : — long and 
arduous pilgrimages to the confluence of sacred streams, — 
to spots that have been immortalized by the exploits of gods 
or the penances of holy sages, — or to shrines where the pre- 
sence of some divinity may be more than ordinarily realized, 
and his favours and blessings with more than wonted afflu- 
ence bestowed. Besides these and others too tedious to be 
recounted, must be specially noted the manifold practices of 
self-murder. Certain modes of voluntary religious suicide 
some of the Shastras distinctly recommend, annexing there- 
to promises of a heavenly recompense. To the modes thus 
divinely appointed the fervent but blind and perverse zeal of 
deluded votaries has not been slow in adding many more 
to testify the intensity of their devotion. Hence it is that 
numbers annually throw themselves over precipices and are 
dashed to pieces; — or cast themselves into sacred rivers and 
are drowned; — or bury themselves alive in graves which may 
have been dug by their nearest kindred. All these, and 
other modes of self-murder, are practised with the distinct 
expectation of earning an entrance into heaven. But the 



157 



most celebrated of them all is the rite of Sati (Suttee). 
Witness that funeral pile on which are stretched the putrid 
corpse of the father, and the living body of the mother. 
Blessed be God ! throughout the British territories such 
cruel piles are extinguished. But the system which prescrib- 
ed them is not yet destroyed ; and the spirit which enkindled 
them has not yet been extinguished. Were the strong arm 
of British power withdrawn to-day, to-morrow would a 
thousand piles be blazing on the plains of Hindustan. And 
in the nominally independent states, the horrid rite is as pre- 
valent as ever. To it, therefore, we are still entitled to refer, 
for a palpable illustration of the practical working of the sys- 
tem of Hinduism. Behold, then, that funeral pile, on which 
are stretched the putrid corpse of the father, and the living 
body of the mother. Around it, behold standing the poor 
hapless children. Standing for what ? To excite the yearn- 
ing of a mother's compassion by their sobs and wailings ? 
No. To quench the devouring flames with their tears ? No. 
But in the name of their gods to apply the torch which, in a 
moment, is to leave them fatherless, motherless, orphans, in 
a friendless world ! Can the policy of hell prevail farther 
than this ? Why is it, that in circumstances so powerfully 
calculated to summon forth all the tenderness and sympathy 
of a mother s heart ; why is it that, seemingly bereft of sen- 
sibility, as well as reason, we behold the unhappy creature 
pillowed on putrescence and ashes, curtained with blazing 
flames, and o'ercanopied with volumes of smoke ? It is be- 
cause she intensely believes that she is to be instantly re- 
ceived into the heaven of Indra. It is because some of those 
books, which she has been taught to regard as divine, assure 
her that such and so great is the merit of this particular act 
of self-immolation, that it even extends beyond herself ; — 
that, if her husband had been the vilest of the vile, and 
banished for his misdeeds into one of the lowest hells, this 
heroic act of self-sacrifice on the part of his widow would 
rescue him from torment ; raise him up beyond the natural 
course of transmigration; and transport him too to the 
heaven of Indra ; — where husband and wife are destined to 



158 



enjoy celestial bliss for a period of years equal to the num- 
ber of hairs in their united heads, — a number which is esti- 
mated at thirty-five millions ! After such a statement, how- 
ever monstrous and preposterous in our estimation, who need 
wonder, — supposing it to be devoutly believed by the blind- 
ed child of superstition, — who need wonder that, from among 
the millions of India, there should have been thousands 
annually devoted as willing victims to the flames of the 
funeral pile ? 

In one or other of the ways now pointed out, are thou- 
sands of thousands of our fellow-subjects in the East, daily 
and hourly toiling, and labouring, and suffering, in order to 
purchase to themselves a right to enter one or other of the 
heavens of the gods. Supposing, however, that they should 
fail in gaining admission into the lowest heaven of positive 
enjoyment, which is that of Indra, their merit may be such 
as to entitle them to exemption for a season from the pains 
and sorrows of transmigration. In this case they are con- 
veyed to the second heaven; which is in " the sky," or region 
immediately above the earth, and is called the 44 world of 
re-existence," — because there the partially elevated spirits 
44 exist without sensation, again to become sensible" when 
the appointed time arrives at which they must revisit the 
earth in human form. It is the characteristic of the 
system, that all who in consequence of their own acts of 
merit are privileged to ascend into any of the heavens, — 
save the highest and most difficult of attainment, which is 
the heaven of Brahma, — must again descend to earth to re- 
animate new forms of being. The duration of their bliss 
may be longer or shorter, according to the degree of that 
merit whose fruition they are entitled to enjoy. It may be 
one year or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, or a million, 
or tens of millions; — but at longest, it can never extend 
to a day of Brahma's life. Down, therefore, must the hu- 
man inhabitants of every heaven save one, proceed again to 
earth. Having come from above, they will be born in hu- 
man form ; of a good family ; and in circumstances pecu- 
liarly advantageous for the performance of works of merit 



159 



that shall secure them a more perfect recompense at the 
next termination of their earthly career. Should the per- 
formance of such works as well as of others, be neglected, 
instead of mounting to heaven at death, they may be doomed 
to transmigrate in lower forms of being. If, however, such 
works be duly performed, their reward will be admission 
into a higher heaven, or a longer residence in the same 
heaven as before. And thus may they be journeying back- 
wards and forwards between heaven and earth, — and so- 
journing alternately in the one and in the other, — till the 
close of Brahma's life, — when they and all things which 
exist shall be reabsorbed into the essence of the Supreme 
Brahm. 

To purchase exemption from degradation in the next 
birth millions in India are indefatigable in the performance 
of rites, ceremonies, and duties, essential to the maintenance 
of caste ; — to insure a reappearance in some higher form 
of animated being, millions more add largely to the num- 
ber and variety of ceremonial acts ; — to earn the recom- 
pense of promotion for a limited number of years in one or 
other of the heavens of the gods, millions more engage 
incessantly in the discharge of isolated works of extraor- 
dinary merit, or in the celebration of those multiplied ob- 
servances, — from the most sanguinary to the most impure, 
— which constitute the degrading services and worship of 
the popular idolatry. But that which almost all the mil- 
lions of India are taught to regard as the highest reward 
is a complete liberation of the soul from all material forms 
— a perfect deliverance from all future migrations — an ab- 
solute identification with, or reabsorption into, the essence 
of the Supreme ! This is emphatically designated final 
beatitude ! 

The practical question — a question the agitation of which, 
even in our day, gives employment to the understanding 
and the hearts of myriads in India, — now recurs, How, or 
in what way is this final beatitude to be secured? All 



160 



concur in replying that it is to be obtained by true or divine 
knowledge. Is it next asked, Wherein does this true or 
divine knowledge consist ? It consists in a discriminating 
acquaintance with the real nature of Brahm, the Supreme 
Spirit. Such knowledge is designated the most exalted 
of all sciences, and the most efficacious way of securing 
eternal felicity. But what, it may next be asked, is im- 
plied in a true knowledge of Brahm ? It is to perceive 
the Supreme Spirit equally present in all beings, and all 
beings in the Supreme Spirit. More strictly it is to know 
and realize Brahm as the sole-existing and eternal essence, 
— to know and realize Brahm not merely as pervading all 
things, but as actually constituting all things ;— as constitut- 
ing by direct emanation from himself the whole assemblage 
of souls or spirits which animate all orders of being, or- 
ganized or unorganized, celestial, terrestrial, or infernal ;— 
as constituting by successive evolution from, and diversified 
modifications of, his own divine substance, all the subtile 
principles and grosser elements which compose the boundless 
varieties of corporeal form, visible and invisible :— above all, 
it is clearly to understand and intensely to realize the fact 
that there is no such thing as soul or spirit apart from 
Brahm, — one's own soul being only a portion, divisible or 
indivisible of the Supreme Spirit, and entitled, when illumi- 
nated, to say, I am Para Brahm, " I myself am the great 
Brahm."— This, this is declared to be that only true and 
dicine knowledge which can never fail to issue in the soul's 
reunion with the divine essence ! 

To acquire, however, such transcendent knowledge, and 
more especially to realize it practically with fixed, constant, 
unwavering mind, is allowed to be a prodigiously difficult 
attainment. Still the acquisition of it is not absolutely 
impossible. It may be reached in the present birth; if 
not in the present, it may in the next : and if not in the 
next, it may in some subsequent migration ; — the aspiring 
soul being always privileged to start in each new state from 
the very point of advantage which it had reached in the 
preceding. The question now arises. Where is this wonder- 



161 



working knowledge to be sought for ? The reply is, only in 
the sacred Vedas, or in those systems of theology which have 
been immediately deduced therefrom. This, it will be seen 
at once, must cut off at least three- fourths of the population 
from the privilege of aspiring to final beatitude in the present 
birth. None but the twice-born, or members of the higher 
castes ; and practically, none but the Brahmans are entitled 
to peruse those works which contain the knowledge indis- 
pensable for final beatitude. The entire caste of Shudras 
and all inferior tribes are incompetent for those " theologi- 
cal studies and theognostic attainments" which constitute 
" divine knowledge." The highest reward to which, at pre- 
sent, they are permitted to aspire, is admission into one or 
other of the celestial abodes. Should their merits, however, 
entitle them in some future birth to appear on earth as mem- 
bers of the Brahmanical order, they may, if they choose, 
enter on a career which shall terminate in absorption. 

Since, then, divine knowledge, as now defined, is essen- 
tial to final liberation ; and since it is acknowledged to be so 
difficult of acquisition, it is a question of absorbing interest in 
the schools of Indian theology, What are the best means of 
attaining to this supreme knowledge ? To enter into all the 
minute distinctions and specific differences which the answer 
to this question has tended to create and multiply, were far 
beyond our limits. A few general statements must suffice. 
On one point all seem to be agreed. It is this :— that those 
who begin to aspire after final beatitude, must relinquish all 
hope or prospect of reaping any of those rewards which are 
to be enjoyed as the fruition of works of merit, either in a 
higher birth in this world, or in any of the heavens of the 
gods. As the prospect of such inferior rewards must be relin- 
quished, all rites, ceremonies, and works of every description 
which naturally lead to their attainment must be relinquished 
too ; — or, if any of these works continue to be performed, it 
must not be from a hope of inferior reward. Any such 
motive would tarnish the performance ; and so far nullify 
or retard the preparation for final identification with Brahm. 
Another point on which all are agreed is this, that as the 

L 



162 



obstructions and obstacles in the way of attaining divine 
knowledge are immense both in number and in magnitude, 
auxiliary means for their removal must be resorted to — Hence 
the origin of all manner of prescriptions for the ultimate at- 
tainment of the coveted knowledge. To three great or ge- 
nerically distinct classes of means we may briefly refer. 

Some of the Orthodox schools insist, more largely than 
others, on certain devotional exercises, as preparatory means. 
— Hence, those long-continued recitations of portions of the 
Vedas in particular sitting or standing postures ; — on the 
banks of rivers, or in sacred spots, or in private houses de- 
void of animals and men; with the eyes half closed and 
fixed on the tip of the nose. — Hence, those strange suppres- 
sions of the breath, in ways and modes endlessly diversified ; 
and those internal utterances or repeated mutterings of the 
peculiar name of Grod, and the trilateral monosyllable Aum, 
and other mystical names and texts which constitute effica- 
cious devotion. — Hence, those attempts at fixing the mind on 
the lotus of the heart, the pineal gland, or some other in- 
ternal object ; to habituate it to the concentration of its 
thoughts, without the intervention of any objects sensible or 
intellectual, on that inconceivable, imperceptible, happy, 
placid being, which is without beginning, middle, or end : — 
and thus gradually prepare the soul for that absorbed con- 
templation through which it may obtain final deliverance. 

Some of the schools, after the example of the sacred stan- 
dards, insist more largely on the practice of austerities as 
preparatory means. The desires and affections, the passions 
and appetites, are allowed to be grand counteractives in the 
way of attaining to perfect knowledge. It is not easy for 
the soul to keep these under control. It is not easy to per- 
suade itself that their appropriate objects have no reality, — 
or at least none apart from the Supreme Spirit. It is not easy 
to convince and satisfy itself that fruits and viands, odours and 
perfumes, and all the varied objects of sense — that friends and 
foes, parents and brothers, sisters and wives and children ; — 
that all are unreal, and illusory, or at best, only portions of the 
Supreme Spirit differently modified and combined ! What 



163 



then must be done ? What can be done, except to attempt 
to extirpate the instincts, to quench the sensibilities, to ex- 
tinguish the affections, to blunt in the corporeal organs all 
susceptibility of external impression ; — and thus virtually re- 
duce the heart to a petrifaction, the mind to a state of 
idiocy, and the body to that of an immovable statue? 
Hence those amazing self-inflicted severities of which all 
have heard — severities, practised more or less by thousands 
and tens of thousands for ages before the Christian era, and 
down to the present time.— Hence the exhortations of the 
Divine Legislator to such of the higher castes as have per- 
formed all religious duties, — read the Vedas in the form pre- 
scribed, — offered sacrifices to the best of their power, — 
paid all their debts of service to the sages, the manes, and 
the gods. — They are enjoined to abandon all food eaten in 
towns — to take up the consecrated fire and sacrificial imple- 
ments — and to repair to the lonely forest. There they are to 
live at first on pure food, such as green herbs, flowers, roots, 
fruit, and oils found in fruits. They are to wear a black ante- 
lope's hide, or a vesture of bark — to bathe evening and morn- 
ing — to suffer the hairs of the head, the beard and the nails to 
grow continually. They are to slide backwards and forwards 
on the ground — or to stand a whole day on tip-toe — or to con- 
tinue in motion rising and sitting alternately. In the hot 
season, they are to sit exposed to five fires, — four blazing 
around, with the sun above ; in the rains, to stand uncovered 
without even a mantle, when the clouds pour the heaviest 
showers ; and in the cold season to wear humid vesture. They 
are by degrees to increase the austerity of devotion ; — so that 
by enduring harsher and harsher mortification, they may 
eventually dry up the bodily frame ; and thus restrain all the 
bodily organs ; and root out those passions and appetites by 
which these are naturally hurried away into the commission of 
divers injurious acts. When thus multiplying self-inflicted 
penances, they are to reflect on the transmigrations of men 
caused by their sinful deeds ; on their separation from those 
whom they love ; or their union with those whom they hate ; 
on their agonizing departure from this corporeal frame ; on 



164 



their formation again in the womb, and the gliding of the vital 
spirit through ten thousand millions of new births. Above 
all, they are, with firm faith and complete power over the 
organs of sense and action, and an exclusive application of 
mind, to reflect on the subtile essence of the Supreme Spirit, 
and its complete existence in all beings, " whether extremely 
high, or extremely low." With minds thus intensely fixed,— 
heeding nought that is earthly, without one feeling or desire, 
with no companion but the soul, — they are to feed on nought 
but water and air, till the mortal frame totally decay. Hav- 
ing at length " shuffled off" the material vehicle, theymay rise 
to exaltation in the divine essence. The Brahman who prac- 
tises these austerities, is called a Sanyasi, or one who " for- 
sakes all actions that are desirable." But thousands and 
tens of thousands who are not Brahmans, by exceeding, if pos- 
sible, the latter in the infliction and endurance of aggravated 
sufferings, strive to aspire to a share of the honours of the 
Sanyasi. These are called Yogis, from Yog, or devotion. 
These are the real gymnosopMsts, or naked philosophers of 
the ancients, who often practise their unexampled severities 
in the solitudes of the forest. They include many of those 
called by the moderns fakirs, who delight to carry .on their 
lacerating operations in the presence of multitudes. Their 
avowed object, like that of the Sanyasis, is to root out every 
human feeling and passion ; to detach the senses from all the 
means of gratification ; to deaden them to every external in- 
fluence—whether the burning heats, or the chilling colds— the 
luxurious banquet, or strains of melody— the idol of ambition, 
or the treasures of avarice— the entreaties of tender affection,' 
or the clamours of cruel reproach. The self-inflicted tortures 
of this class are endless. Some keep the palms of their hands 
clenched tiU the nails have pierced into the flesh ; others hold 
one or both arms upright, till the fluids cease to circulate and 
they become shrivelled into stumps. Some walk or creep along, 
on their hands and knees, till they are twisted and unnatu- 
rally deformed ; others hang over a slow fire. Some stretch 
themselves upon beds of iron spikes; others stand upright 
till their limbs are greatly swoln and ulcerated. Some 



165 



carry iron collars around the neck, and fetters on the limbs ; 
others bind themselves with ropes or chains to trees, till 
they expire. Some inhume themselves in the ground, leav- 
ing only a small hole through which to breathe ; others keep 
gazing so stedfastly and so long at the heavens, that the 
muscles of the neck become contracted, and no aliment but 
liquid can pass through. The number of those who practise 
the most aggravated of these severities is greatly diminished. 
But the multitudes who assume the name, and profess to 
practise them in a greater or less degree, are still prodigious. 
Hence, the swarms of religious mendicants that infest the 
country, — some almost naked, to indicate that they have 
subdued their passions ; others wearing tigers' skins, to point 
out that they reside chiefly in the forests. Numbers smear 
their bodies with the ashes of cow dung, wear long hair 
clotted with filth, fasten artificial snakes round their fore- 
heads, put strings of human bones around their necks, carry 
human skulls filled with ordure, — with a hundred other 
tokens and emblems of pretended self-denial. 

There are other schools which maintain that, without the 
devotional exercises of practical religion, and without resort- 
ing to self-inflicted tortures, it is possible, by means of pro- 
found meditation, and a discriminating acquaintance with 
the true principles of things, to attain to divine knowledge. 
Hence, in order to aid the soul in analyzing and banishing 
those false impressions which arise from the instinctive mo- 
nitions of consciousness, and the natural inferences of the re- 
flective intellect under the influence of ignorance and illusion, 
— hence the immense piles of logical and dialectic subtilties. — 
Hence those endless discussions as to the different kinds and 
degrees of evidence by which demonstration maybe arrived at, 
and certainly obtained ; — such as perception, inference, affir- 
mation; and, included in or resulting from these, comparison 
or analogy, tradition, capacity, aspect, and privation of four 
sorts — antecedent, reciprocal, absolute, and total. — Hence 
those varying enumerations of the constituent principles of 
which this universe is composed ; the mode and order of their 
derivation from the essence of Brahm ; their divisions, com- 



166 



binations, and mutual relations. — Hence those interminable 
debates as to " predicaments " or objects of proof; and the 
number of distinct " categories " to which all things percep- 
tible and imperceptible, sensitive and cognitive, material and 
immaterial, ought to be reduced,— preparatory to a more ge- 
neral resolution of the whole into the sole-existing category, 
which is Brahm. — Hence those acute disquisitions on the in- 
cumbrances which hinder the progress of the soul in the 
contemplation of what is immutable — Hence, those endless 
divisions and subdivisions of " the affections of intellect, its 
sentiments or faculties, whether obstructing, disabling, con- 
tenting, or perfecting the understanding : " — the obstructing 
class, according to one of the principal schools, being divided 
into five sorts, viz. : obscurity, illusion, extreme illusion, 
gloom, and utter darkness, which are again subdivided into 
sixty-two species ; — the disabling class, comprising twenty- 
eight species, and so of the rest ; — each species being defin- 
ed, discussed, admitted, or denied, according to the doctrines 
of the varying schools. — Hence the never-ending controver- 
sies respecting the number of qualities which may be predi- 
cated of soul, such as number, quantity, severalty, conjunction, 
disjunction, &c. ; and of the constituent parts of matter, such 
as individuality, priority, posteriority, velocity and elasticity; 
antecedent, emergent, and absolute negation, mutual priva- 
tion, &c. &c. — Hence those forms and examples of syllogism, 
with classifications of the divers varieties of fallacy, or sem- 
blance of reason ; of the different sorts of fraud, or perversion 
and misconstruction ; of the twenty-four kinds of futile 
answer, or self-confuting reply ; of the twenty-two distinc- 
tions of failure in argument, &c. &c. ; — all of which united 
might well be allowed to rival some of the more striking 
parts of the wondrous fabric of Aristotelian subtilty. 

By one or other of the varied means now pointed out, the 
disciple may at length acquire a discriminating knowledge 
of the real nature of things, apart from the influence of il- 
lusion ; — may attain " the glorious prerogative of seeing all 
things in God, and discriminating the divine unity which 
comprehends all things and may thus reach that state 



167 

of perfect abstraction, or absorbed contemplation, which insures 
immediate liberation, or identification with the Supreme Spirit. 

The number of those who, in our day, actually attain to 
this exalted state, is confessed to be very small. Still, the 
belief that it may be reached is universal. From year to 
year, and in one district or another, some individual is sure 
to be discovered who is devoutly regarded as having possess- 
ed himself of the sublime attainment. And numbers there 
are who profess to be labouring after the enviable possession. 
Their encouragement is, that, though in this birth they may 
fail, their labour will not be in vain. Their approximation 
to the perfect state may be such as to entitle them at death 
to an entrance to the highest heaven, or that of Brahma ; 
where they remain exempt from future transmigration. Or, 
if born again in time, they will reappear with the accession 
of the entire stock of merit acquired in the previous birth ; 
and, consequently, endowed with the augmented capability of 
successfully achieving their great end. If, from some weak- 
ness, or omission, or other untoward circumstance, they still 
come short of immediate liberation, they are cheered by 
the full assurance, that in this life the stream of thought 
may be made to flow on, so exclusive of all worldly ten- 
dencies, towards the Divine Spirit, that the soul may be- 
come, in some measure, a conscious possessor of almost infi- 
nite attributes. 

By certain long-continued bodily and mental exercises, 
consisting of " intensely profound meditation on special to- 
pics, accompanied by suppression of breath and restraint of 
the senses, while steadily maintaining prescribed postures," 
it is religiously believed that the adept may acquire " univer- 
sal knowledge "—knowledge of " the events of preceding and 
future transmigrations " — knowledge, generally, of " every 
thing past and future, remote and hidden that he may 
" divine the thoughts of others, gain the strength of an ele- 
phant, the courage of a lion, and the swiftness of the wind, 
— that he may fly in the air, float in the water, dive into the 
earth, and contemplate all worlds at a glance ; "—that he may 
" see and converse with the deified persons who range through 



168 



the aerial regions ; hear celestial sounds, and be regaled with 
celestial fragrance ; listen to the songs and conversation of 
the celestial choirs, and have the perception of their touch 
in their passage through the air;" — that he may become 
" rarified, and transforming himself into the subtilest of the 
elements, render his body invisible and invulnerable ; or, for- 
saking it altogether for a season, may enter into any other 
body whatsoever, all the senses accompanying him as the 
swarms of bees follow the queen bee, and in this new body, 
act as though it were his own ™ — that he may, as elsewhere 
and otherwise expressed, " acquire eight-fold power, consist- 
ing of the faculty of shrinking into a minute form to which 
every thing is pervious ; or enlarging to a gigantic body ; or 
assuming levity, as rising along a sunbeam to the solar orb ; 
or possessing unlimited reach of organs, as touching the 
moon with the tip of a finger ; or irresistible will, for instance, 
sinking into the earth as easily as into water ; dominion 
over all beings, animate and inanimate ; faculty of changing 
the course of nature ; ability to accomplish every thing de- 
sired — in a word, that he may be enabled to realize in him- 
self most of the powers of a real living divinity. 

" The notion," adds Colebrooke, " that such transcendent 
power is attainable by man in this life, is not peculiar to 
any one sect. It is generally prevalent among the Hindus, 
and amounts to a belief in magic. A yogi, imagined to 
have acquired such faculties, is, to vulgar apprehension, a 
sorcerer ; and is so represented in many a drama and popular 
tale. But neither power, however transcendent, — nor dis- 
passion, or a spiritual impulse — the conviction that nature 
is a dream — nor virtue, however meritorious, suffices for the 
attainment of final beatitude. It serves but to prepare the 
soul for that absorbed contemplation, by which the great 
purpose of deliverance is to be accomplished." 

When, at length, by the persevering use of one or other 
of the preparatory means already enumerated, the soul has 
succeeded in discovering the true nature of the present sys- 
tem of things, as to its origin, duration, and termination : — 
when it has found that, in reference to the visible universe, 



J 69 



it is, itself, simply " a witness, bystander, spectator, solitary 
and passive — that " all which passes in consciousness, in 
intellect, is reflected by the soul as an image which sullies 
not the crystal, and appertains not to it — that Nature, or 
the manifested universe, is " like to a female dancer, ex- 
hibiting herself to soul, as to an audience, and is reproached 
with shamelessness for repeatedly exposing herself to the 
rude gaze of the spectator, — that she desists, however, when 
she has sufficiently shown herself, — that she does so, because 
she has been seen, and the spectator desists too because he 
has seen her — when all this perfect knowledge and perfect 
discrimination have been acquired, then it is that the soul has 
reached the divine state of absorbed contemplation in which 
the " conclusive, incontrovertible, single truth is intensely 
and exclusively realized, that neither I am, as an individual 
soul, nor is aught mine, nor I exist." In other words, when 
the soul, by the untiring employment of the appointed means, 
has been made vividly and truly to discern that the Supreme 
Spirit is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva — that it is the sun, 
moon, and stars — that it is earth, water, fire, air, and ether 
— that it is all which is, was, or will be to all eternity — that 
all that exists is spirit, and nothing but spirit, assuming 
some illusive form, or manifested under some emanative 
modification, — that the human meditative, contemplative 
soul is itself that spirit, — is itself God, — being either a ma- 
nifestation or a portion, divided or undivided, of the Su- 
preme Brahm : — When this grand truth is vividly, intense- 
ly, unwaveringly realized, then is the soul said to have 
reached a state of perfect abstraction ; — a state wherein it re- 
mains utterly unsusceptible of sensation, whether taste or 
smell, sound or colour, heat or cold, pleasure or pain, though 
encompassed with the most stirring objects of sense — ut- 
terly unsusceptible of emotion, whether joy or grief, love 
or hate, fear or anger, though still tabernacled in the midst 
of a thousand exciting causes ; — a state of calm unbroken 
passionless tranquillity, in which undisturbed alike by the 
allurements of sense and the tumults of emotion, it — 
" Floats like the lotus on the lake, unmoved, unruffled by the tide." 



170 



Then is it released from the bonds of Maya, or the illusory 
energy ; — then does the belief in the separate existence, 
either of the soul or of an eternal world, evanish ; — then does 
the very consciousness of personal identity cease ; — and then, 
exempt from liability to future birth, does it " obtain uni- 
fication" with the essence of the Supreme Spirit]! 

But can it really be, are some ever ready to ask, that 
multitudes believe in the literal reabsorption of the soul into 
the very essence of the Supreme Spirit ? Believe ! The great 
majority of the millions of India have for ages intensely so 
believed ; and not only so, but have acted, and to this day, 
continue to act on the belief. Though the greater part be 
doomed in the present birth to aspire after an inferior re- 
compense, all are taught to look forward to absorption into 
the divine essence as the ultimate reward, — as final beatitude. 
The soul is firmly and almost universally regarded an emana- 
tion from divinity ; — but being more or less tainted by pas- 
sion and by crime, it must be purified by trial and by suf- 
fering. For this purpose, it must pass in a circle of migra- 
tions, from one form of being to another ; till purged of 
sinful stains, it is prepared to be finally reabsorbed into the 
divine essence. Of the nature of this process, various illus- 
trations are supplied by almost all classes of the community. 
One of the commonest is the following : — Look, say they, at 
the ocean. ' Can you separate a particle, or many particles 
of the fluid from the main body Undoubtedly, you reply. 
4 May you not then enclose the detached portion in a vessel? — 
• May you not shut up and seal the vessel, and cast it afloat 
upon the bosom of the great waters V — Most assuredly we may. 
4 Is not the water in the vessel the very same in kind as that 
by which it is surrounded ? 1 — Yes, it is. 4 But is the water 
within in immediate contact with the water without P — No. 
4 Why not?' — Because they are at present dissevered by 
means of the casement of the vessel. 4 How then could you 
reunite them V — By breaking the vessel and dashing it to 
shivers. 4 That being done, what becomes of the enclosed 
water V— It is instantly reabsorbed, swallowed up, and lost 
in the waters of the ocean. Precisely similar, they tell us, 



171 



is the origin, present condition, and future destiny of every 
soul. It is a portion separated from the great ocean of spirit. 
Though shut up and imprisoned for a season in material 
forms, whether human or brutal, it is still the same in 
essence as its primal source. And when the cycle of its 
purgations has been terminated, and the last material case- 
ment or tabernacle which it is doomed to occupy has been 
famished into the weakness of dissolution, and finally shiver- 
ed into atoms and nothingness by the stroke of death ; — then 
does the incarcerated spirit merge into the great ocean of 
spirit, is reabsorbed into it, swallowed up, and lost in the 
homogeneous undistinguishable mass. 

While the millions of India have for ages been thus sti- 
mulated to conform to a boundless code of rites, ceremonies, 
and works of merit, by a graduated scale of future rewards, 
in number, extent and variety, almost infinite ; they have, 
on the other hand, been solemnly warned against short- 
comings in the performance of necessary duties, or duties 
indispensable towards the preservation of caste, by a gra- 
duated scale of future punishments, — in number, extent, 
and variety almost infinite too. 

There are of course hundreds and thousands of laws and 
ordinances, the violation of any of which must be visited 
with penal consequences in this life ; whether at the hands 
of relations, or the guardians of caste, or the community at 
large, or the civil magistrate. In these cases, there is also 
an entailment of certain residuary retributions in the life to 
come. There are, also, hundreds and thousands of laws and 
ordinances, the infringement or neglect of which is to be 
followed by judicial visitations only in the next life. But 
the point of doctrinal importance is this, — that, except in 
the case of certain deadly sins, all omissions of duty or actual 
transgressions of prescriptive law, so far as these incur the in- 
fliction of pains and penalties in the next life, may be atoned 
for in the present. Hence that amazingly minute and vo- 
luminous code of atonements and expiations which forms 



172 



so characteristic and integral a part of the great scheme of 
Hinduism. Thousands of offences, great and small, are 
enumerated, many of which could never be reckoned really 
criminal on any soil except that of India ; — and the expia- 
tions for each, which shall have the effect of completely ex- 
hausting the entailed future punishments, are specifically de- 
tailed. To one or two only can we refer, merely as examples. 
If any twice-born man has intentionally drunk one drop of in- 
ebriating liquor, he may atone for his offence, by " severely 
burning his body, or drinking pure water, or milk, or clari- 
fied butter boiling hot ;"" or, if he tasted it unknowingly, he 
may expiate the sin, " by eating only some broken rice, or 
grains of tila from which oil has been extracted, once every 
night for a whole year ; wrapped in a coarse vesture of hair 
from a cow's tail ; or sitting unclothed in the house, wearing 
his locks and beard uncut." If he has killed a cow without 
malice, he must for some months be restricted to certain 
unpleasant meats and drinks. " Covered with the hide of 
the slain cow, he must all day attend on the herd to which 
she belonged, quaffing the dust raised by their hoofs, strok- 
ing and saluting them, — standing while they stand, — follow- 
ing, when they move together, — lying down, while they lie 
down, in heat, in rain, or in cold, or while the blast furiously 
rages ; — not seeking his own shelter, without first sheltering 
the cows to the utmost of his power." But it] is needless 
to pursue the catalogue of expiable crimes, amongst which 
we find such as the following : — killing by design a rat, a frog, 
a lizard, an owl, a crow, a snake, a goose, &c. &c. ; insects, 
and other boneless animals; — touching any prohibited arti- 
cles, or treading on unpurified spots, — and a thousand other 
open and secret offences, often frivolous, often ridiculous, 
and often nameless : — for each and all of which, severally 
and collectively, atonements are prescribed, of a character 
as various as the crimes committed, — such as, offering gifts 
to the Brahmans, fastings, repeatings of holy texts, suppres- 
sions of the breath in water, burnings of different members of 
the body, swallowings of disagreeable liquids, bathings in 
constrained positions, touchings of sacred animals, alms- 



173 



givings, oblations to fire, sittings and standings in humiliat- 
ing attitudes, &c. &c. For any of the foul acts in the 
immense catalogue — whether secret or open, committed 
ignorantly or knowingly — the appointed expiation will amply 
atone. It completely destroys the sin, just " as fire consumes 
in an instant, with his bright flame, the wood." From the 
guilt of the offence, the sinner is liberated, " like a snake 
disengaged from his slough." 

What is the practical result of this institution ? It is 
that tens of thousands of the people of India are, to the pre- 
sent time, constantly engaged in the voluntary accomplish- 
ment of those atonements, and in the voluntary infliction of 
those expiatory tortures, by which the retributive awards 
attached to the commission of thousands of actual trans- 
gressions, real or imaginary, may be exhausted in the pre- 
sent life. Should the atonements and expiations divinely 
ordained not be executed by the transgressor, what follows ? 
It is, that in the next birth he must endure the inevitable 
penalty. Here opens up to us another view of the practical 
working of the system. To certain actions committed in a 
preceding state — for which the proper expiation has not been 
performed — the penalty attached consists of morbid changes 
in the body which must be inhabited in the next birth. 
Hence, says Manu, " a stealer of gold from a Brahman is 
doomed to have whitlows on his nails ; a drinker of spirits, 
black teeth ; a false detractor, fetid breath ; a stealer of 
grain, the defect of some limb ; a stealer of dressed grain, 
dyspepsia ; an unauthorized reader of the Scriptures, dumb- 
ness ; a stealer of clothes, leprosy ; a horse-stealer, lameness ; 
the stealer of a lamp, total blindness ; the mischievous extin- 
guisher of it, blindness in one eye — and so of numberless 
other offences. Thus, " according to the diversity of actions 
are men born despised by the good, — stupid, dumb, blind, 
deaf, and deformed. Penance, therefore, must invariably 
be performed for the sake of expiation, since they who have 
not expiated their sins, will again spring to birth with dis- 
graceful marks." Hence it is, that in India, under the reign 
of Hinduism, there can be no asylums for the deaf, or dumb, 



174 



or blind, — no hospitals, no infirmaries for the sickly, the dis- 
eased, and the maimed, or any that are suddenly overtaken 
with corporeal calamities. All of these are by common con- 
sent despised, vilified, neglected, abandoned. They are 
systematically, and on religious principle, doomed to a sort 
of outlawry. Their various bodily ailments and complaints 
being almost universally regarded as the righteous punish- 
ment of unexpiated vices and follies in a preceding state, 
the unhappy victims are destined to be treated as crimi- 
nals, who are only undergoing the punishment due to 
their sins. They are practically regarded much in the 
same way as we would contemplate the inmates of a jail, 
or a bridewell, or a penitentiary. Hence has arisen much, 
very much, of the national apathy, callous indifference, and 
hard-hearted unconcern of the millions of India, towards the 
sorrows, the woes, the miseries, and the sufferings of their 
fellows ! 

Those whose original sin, or omissions of duty, or unex- 
piated actual transgressions, are such as to sink them beneath 
the condition of humanity, must enter various brutal and 
other forms. If, says Manu, a man steal grain in the husk, 
he shall be born a rat ; if yellow mixed metal, a gander ; 
if water, a diver ; if money, a great stinging gnat ; if flesh 
meat, a vulture ; if oil, an oil-drinking beetle ; if a deer, a 
wolf ; if roots or fruit, an ape if the property of a priest, a 
crocodile or other mischievous blood-sucking creature ; if 
gems, or certain grains, he must migrate a hundred or a 
thousand times in the form of grasses, or shrubs, or creeping 
and twining plants, or other terrene substances ; — and so of 
numberless other offences and corresponding retributive al- 
lotments. The general principle on which the future awards 
are regulated, is, that " similar to the passions to which they 
devoted themselves in this probationary scene, will be the ani- 
mal, or mineral, or vegetable into which, in a future birth, the 
migrating souls will descend. The form of the furious lion and 
tiger will receive the soul in which anger and revenge predo- 
minate. Unclean and ravenous birds are the allotted mansion 
of souls polluted with lust and blinded by ambition. Noxious 



175 



and loathsome reptiles are the abode of those debased by gro- 
velling and sordid passions. To some, vegetable and animal 
substances are the prisons assigned. Of others, sharks and 
a variety of aquatic monsters, are the destined repository. 
The profoundest caverns of the ocean, and the bowels of the 
highest mountains swarm with transmigrating existences."" 
Our present purpose not being to expose, but simply to ex- 
hibit the system of Hinduism ; it has all along been taken 
for granted, that in the eye of the intelligent Christian, its 
best confutation must be the extravagance and absurdity of 
its tenets. What, for instance, can be more absurd than the 
principle " that the crimes and propensities which the soul 
had perpetrated or pampered in one body, are to determine 
its succeeding migration to another I " To punish, as has 
been remarked of the corresponding Pythagorean doctrine, 
to punish and correct the evil propensities of the past, " the 
soul is dismissed to the very form in which those propensities 
are again to be exercised and indulged. From acting the 
glutton among men, it is to be sent to grovel and wallow in 
the swine, and so act the glutton among brutes. The do- 
minant and peccant appetite, instead of being purified by the 
change, is to be fomented by the continued gratification of 
its vilest tendencies ; and that which was designed to defe- 
cate the stream, and to purify it for a reunion with its ori- 
ginal and perfect fount, is to render it, as it flows in the 
channel of migration, only more turbid and more impure. 1 ' 
Besides, if the doctrine of transmigration, generally, has call- 
ed forth the most urgent precepts to show tenderness to all 
sentient beings, however humble or even loathsome ; and if it 
has led to corresponding practices, so that many cannot walk 
without sweeping the path before them, lest they heedlessly 
tread on imprisoned spirits, — the present principle of allot- 
ment has tended more than any other to generate, extend, 
and perpetuate a systematic cruelty towards certain animals ; 
and to sanction and vindicate occasional cruelty towards 
even the most sacred. The inflicter of the injury has only 
to discover that the poor creature exhibits some mark or 
trace of being the material vehicle of a criminal who had 



176 



not expiated his sins in a former birth, triumphantly to jus- 
tify the most unmerited severities ! 

Once more, if the original depravity or the actual trans- 
gression be such, that migrations through any kind or num- 
ber of terrestrial forms be not adequate punishment, the 
wicked must be banished from earth altogether ; and sent 
down to the inferior worlds ; — there to endure torments in 
one or other of the hells provided for great transgres- 
sors. Weeping, wailing, shrieking, they are dragged to the 
palace of Yama, the king of these doleful regions. On ar- 
riving there, they behold him " clothed with terror, two hun- 
dred and forty miles in height ; his eyes distended like a lake 
of water ; his voice loud as the thunders at the dissolution 
of the universe ; the hairs of his body as long as palm trees ; 
a flame of fire proceeding from his mouth ; the noise of his 
breath like the roaring of a tempest ; and in his right hand a 
terrific iron club." Sentence is pronounced; and the'wretched 
beings are doomed to undergo different punishments accord- 
ing to the nature of their unexpiated crimes. Some are made 
to tread on burning sands or sharp-edged stones ; others are 
exposed to showers of blazing embers or scalding water. 
Some are rolled among thorns, and bones, and spikes, and 
putrefying flesh; others are dragged along the roughest 
places, by leathern cords passing through the tenderest mem- 
bers of the body. Some are assailed by tigers, rhinoceroses, 
jackals and elephants ; others by terrible giants, spectres, 
and hobgoblins. Some are exposed to flaming lights and 
scorching heats ; others to midnight darkness and pinching 
cold. Some are pierced with arrows, beaten with clubs, 
pricked with needles, seared with hot irons, tormented by 
flies and wasps ; others are made to feed on carrion, and 
putrid blood, saliva and ordure, and all manner of impure 
substances. Some are plunged into pans of liquid fire, or 
boiling oil, or filthy mire ; others are dashed from lofty trees, 
or precipices many hundred miles high. Some have their 
limbs pinched and bruised by racking instruments ; others 
have their eyes and entrails torn out by vultures and similar 
ravenous birds. In fine, according to one of the Puranas, 



177 



w there are a hundred thousand hells, in which different kinds 
of torments are inflicted on criminals, according to the di- 
rections of the Shastras, and the nature of their guilt. 11 

The torments of these hells, like the joys of the Hindu 
heavens, are not eternal. From the apprehended possibi- 
lity of its own eternal fate, no guilty soul can brook the no- 
tion of everlasting torment. Hence, no doubt, the origin of 
a purgatory, — whether announced by the heathen Shastras of 
the Hindu, or the equally heathenish traditions of an apos- 
tate Romish Church. In the former case, it is asserted 
that the torments of an individual soul may be prolonged 
from a few years to millions. Still they will have an end. 
What then becomes of the soul that has at length expiat- 
ed its guilt ? It ascends to earth, there to migrate anew 
through hundreds, or thousands, or millions of mineral, ve- 
getable, and animal forms ; till it reappear in the garb of 
humanity. Having once more assumed the human form, it 
may commit acts of merit which shall raise it to one of the 
heavens of the gods ; or acts of demerit which shall cause it 
to be remanded to the abodes of woe. And thus, unless 
final deliverance or absorption has been secured, may every 
soul be alternately enjoying the sensual bliss of paradise, 
or undergoing the excruciating tortures of hell, — alternately 
elevated among princes and sages, or grovelling among 
monsters and reptiles, throughout the millions of millions of 
years which constitute the duration of the universe. When 
the great day of doom arrives, all souls whether in heaven, on 
earth, or in hell, with their ethereal or material vehicles, and 
the substantial fabrics of worlds which they occupy through- 
out the boundless void of space, — all, all, will be reabsorbed 
into the essence of the supreme sole-existing spirit. Even 
then the soul obtains not eternal rest. No : — Absorbed in the 
divine essence, it exists in a state of unconsciousness ; rather 
it is reduced to a state of absolute nonentity for myriads of 
ages, till Brahm reawakens and wills anew to manifest the 
universe. Then are the same souls launched forth again, en- 
stamped with a character allied to the predispositions con- 
tracted in their former state, and destined to pass through 

M 



178 



the same endless round of changes, migrations, and births. 
Thus it has been with souls from all eternity, and thus will 
it ever be. For the best and holiest of souls, there can be no 
e verlasting sabbatism. Hence much of the force and meaning 
of the description of the soul given by Krishna, an incarna- 
tion of Vishnu, in his address to the hero Arjuna in the 
midst of battle, in an episode of the Mahabharat, translated 
into prose by Wilkins, and into our " eight line measure with- 
out rhyme, (which in the number of its syllables, and as 
nearly as possible in its cadence, answers to the Sanskrit 
original,)" by a brilliant writer in the Quarterly Review : — 

Thou moum'st for those thou should'st not mourn, albeit thy words are 
like the wise, 

For those that live or those that die, may never mourn the truly wise. 
Ne'er was the time when I was not, nor those, nor yonder kings of earth ; 
Hereafter, ne'er shall be the time, when one of us shall cease to be. 
The soul, within its mortal frame, glides on through childhood, youth, and 

age; 

Then in another form renewed, renews its stated course again. 

All indestructible is he that spread the living universe, 

And who is he that shall destroy the work of the indestructible ? 

Corruptible these bodies are that warp the everlasting soul — 

The eternal, unimaginable soul. Thence on to battle, Bharata ! 

For he that thinks to slay the soul, or he that thinks the soul is slain, 

Are fondly both alike deceived ; it is not slain — it slayeth not ; 

It is not born — it doth not die ; past, present, future, knows it not ; 

Ancient, eternal, and unchanged, it dies not with the dying frame. 

Who knows it incorruptible, and everlasting, and unbom, 

What heeds he whether he may slay, or fall himself in battle slain ? 

As their old garments men cast off, anon new raiment to assume, 

So casts the soul its worn-out frame, and takes at once another form. 

The weapon cannot pierce it through, nor wastes it the consuming fire ; 

The liquid waters melt it not, nor dries it up the parching wind ; 

Impenetrable and unburned ; impermeable and undiied • 

Perpetual, ever wandering, firm, indissoluble, permanent, 

Invisible, unspeakable. Thus deeming, wherefore mourn for it ? 

Here we must pause. Not with greater delight can the 
toiling swain welcome the approach of eventide, with its re- 
freshing repast and grateful repose ; not with greater ecstasy 
of joy can the panting traveller in the desert hail the ap- 



179 



pearance of some lovely spot of verdure, with its limpid 
fountain, and cool embowering shades, — than we are now 
ready to embrace the first form of sober truth, which may 
present itself to the weary mental eye, after roaming so long 
over the trackless wastes and dreary wildernesses of Hindu- 
ism. Again and again, both in story and in song, has India 
been celebrated as the fairest of all lands — a land, so gorge- 
ously clad, that it has been emphatically styled " the clime 
of the sun." And truly it is so. For there he reigns as king. 
There, from his meridian throne, he pours down the full tide 
of effulgent glory, causing all nature to luxuriate in her rich 
magnificence. There, the glowing imagery of the prophet 
seems almost literally to be realized. The trees of the 
forest seem to clap their hands, and the little hills and the 
valleys seem to rejoice on every side. All bespeak the glo- 
ries of a presiding deity, and recall to remembrance the 
bowers of Paradise. But, oh ! in that highly-favoured land, 
we are ever made to feel, that in proportion to the exuber- 
ance of Jehovah's bounties, in very proportion is the vile- 
ness and ingratitude of man ! 

Of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the 
perverse ingenuity of fallen man, Hinduism is surely the 
most stupendous — whether we consider the boundless extent 
of its range, or the boundless multiplicity of its component 
parts. Of all systems of false religion it is that which 
seems to embody the largest amount and variety of sem- 
blances and counterfeits of divinely revealed facts and doc- 
trines. In this respect, it appears to hold the same relation 
to the primitive patriarchal faith, that Roman Catholicism 
does to the primitive apostolic faith. It is, in fact, the Po- 
pery of primitive patriarchal Christianity. All the terms and 
names expressive of the sublimest truths, originally revealed 
from heaven, it still retains ; and under these it contrives to 
inculcate diametrically opposite and contradictory errors. 
Its account of the creation and destruction of the universe, — of 
the floods and conflagrations to which it is alternately subject- 
ed, — of the divine origin, present sinfulness, and final destiny 
of the sold, — together with many cognate and subsidiary state- 



180 



ments, must be regarded as embodying, under the corrup- 
tions of tradition and the exaggerations of fancy, some of 
the grandest truths ever communicated by the Almighty to 
man, whether before or after the fall. Its nomenclature 
on the subject of the unity and spirituality of the one 
great, supreme, self-existent Lord, is most copious; but, 
when analyzed, it presents us with nothing better than an 
infinite negation. Its vocabulary, descriptive of the natural 
attributes of the Great Spirit, superabounds to overflowing ; 
but it evacuates every one of them of absolute perfection. 
There is unchangeableness ; though constantly subject at the 
confluence of certain cycles of time, not merely to alteration 
of plans and purposes, but to change of essence. There is 
omnipotence ; but, bereft of creative energy, it is limited to 
the power of eduction and fabrication. There is omniscience ; 
but it is restricted to the brief period of wakefulness, at the 
time of manifesting the universe. And so of other natural 
attributes. Instead of possessing moral attributes, the Su- 
preme Spirit is represented as assuming, when he awakes, 
certain generalized active qualities, which admit of being pre- 
dicated of fire, or air, or water, or any other material sub- 
stance, as well as spirit I What a contrast to all this do the 
statements of the Bible exhibit ! Here we find the supreme, 
eternal self-existent Spirit, — Jehovah, — distinguished by 
all the marks and characteristics of inherent independent 
personality ; and arrayed in all the glory and grandeur of 
attributes infinitely perfect. His unchangeableness is abso- 
lute ; being that of unalterable rectitude of will, — immutable 
purity and excellence of nature and essence. His omnipo- 
tence is absolute ; being the power which baffles all finite 
conception, — the power of summoning every thing into being, 
out of nothing. His omniscience is absolute,— extending not 
merely to the actual knowledge of all things that now are, 
or shall be, but to a perfect knowledge of all the countless 
possibilities of things ; and that too, throughout every mo- 
ment of a never-ending eternity. And if the notices of Je- 
hovah's natural attributes roll along the sacred pages with 
a sublimity of conception, a majesty of expression, a variety 



181 



of beauteous illustration, — all their own, — what shall we say 
of the Bible portraiture of His moral attributes ? Trans- 
cendently glorious though the former be, they seem almost 
eclipsed by reason of the glory of that which excelleth. They 
are the latter, which, in the Bible, may be said to occupy 
the foreground. His goodness, ever delighting to commu- 
nicate without being exhausted ; His mercy, or disposition 
to forgive, unallied with weakness ; His pity and compassion 
and loving-kindness, unsullied by any tincture of frailty — all 
are set forth and illustrated in terms of inimitable tender- 
ness. His awful holiness, or consuming hatred of all sin, 
and burning love of all rectitude ; His inflexible justice, and 
unspotted righteousness ; His unerring truth, and unchang- 
ing faithfulness ; — all are pourtrayed with a vigour, variety, 
and sublimity of language, that absorb, ravish, and over- 
power the faculties. And when the moral are viewed in 
their inseparable association with the natural attributes, 
the whole constitutes an absolute unbounded plenitude of 
perfection, in the eternal possession of which, Jehovah shines 
forth under an aspect of ineffable glory, majesty, and love- 
liness, — unapproached and unapproachable by the most 
seraphic spirit in his highest flight of meditative and ador- 
ing wonder. 

To this combined portraiture of the natural and moral at- 
tributes of Jehovah, nothing similar, nothing second, nothing 
approaching by any assignable measure either in kind or de- 
gree, can be collected from all the writings of all the wise 
men of all countries and of all ages. Whence, we may be per- 
mitted to ask in passing, whence could prophets and apos- 
tles have derived such lofty conceptions of the true God ? 
— conceptions which never entered the minds of the greatest 
philosophers of the east or of the west ; but which, when dis- 
tinctly announced, at once commend themselves as by the 
instinctive force of self-evident truth, to the largest and 
most enlightened reason ? Will it be alleged that these 
sprung from their own cogitations ; their researches into 
antiquity ; their investigations into the constitution of the 
mental, moral, and physical universe ? If so, how came they to 



182 



succeed so perfectly, where all others had so perfectly failed I 
How came it that that God, after whom all others sought 
so gropingly in the dark, is at once manifested in the pages 
of a few Jewish writers, with a fulness and clearness of 
light, which flashes conviction on every reflective soul I 
Were the wise men of Greece and Rome, — not to talk of 
the metaphysical Brahmans of India, — were Socrates, Plato, 
and Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca, more limited in their 
natural endowments and ratiocinative powers, than the 
writers of the Bible ? Was the field of tradition, the region of 
mind, the world of matter, less open to their prying scrutiny \ 
No such thing. In all these respects, the natural advan- 
tages demonstratively preponderated on their side. How, 
then, are we to account for the phenomenon, that their spe- 
culations on the subject of God and his attributes, are like 
the prattlings of children compared with the grave and ma- 
jestic utterances of the Jewish authors I What reasonable 
account can imagination itself supply, except that which is 
invariably furnished by themselves, namely, that they wrote 
" as they were moved by the Holy Ghost V The more we 
know of the efforts of unassisted reason in exploring the 
domain of theologic science, the more must the Bible be en- 
shrined in our profoundest regards. The more extended 
our acquaintance with the most masterly products of human 
intellect, the deeper must be our reverence for that Word, 
which bears on its brow what must stamp it as the progeny 
of the infinite mind. And thus too will it appear, how in- 
creasing knowledge in this, as in all other departments, may 
be made to minister incense on the altars of piety. 

Hinduism describes in glowing terms the ineffable felicity 
of its supreme god ; and holds out to its votaries the pros- 
pect of a participation therein as final beatitude. Wherein 
the felicity consists, may be to us incomprehensible ; but 
that is not the question. To us it may appear nothing 
better than the blessedness of a decayed vegetable, or of a 
motionless clod. Still, it is the highest in their estimation ; 
and in order to enjoy it, their supreme god must wholly 
withdraw himself from the administration of the universe, 



183 



and sink into unconscious slumber, — as if the cares of 
government, or the active communication of the means of 
enjoyment to his creatures must be interruptive of his calm 
unruffled solitary bliss ! This surely looks like infinite 
selfishness. Does man stand in need of a divine pattern to 
stimulate this predominant propensity in his corrupt nature I 
Whether so or not, he is invited, and encouraged to aspire 
to a share of the felicity of the Supreme Spirit. In order 
to succeed in this end, he must extirpate the disposition to 
share his own happiness with others ; he must resolve to 
enjoy all his [pleasures by himself ; he must disregard the 
welfare of friends and of general society ; he must withhold 
all sympathy from the afflicted ; he must refuse to succour 
the miserable, relieve the oppressed, lend assistance to the 
poor and the needy ; he must take no notice of what is 
good, and connive at what is evil ; — in a word, he must 
withdraw himself from the world altogether, isolate himself 
from the commonwealth of mankind, empty himself of all 
concern for any other being, and finally annihilate every 
trace of self-consciousness ; and all this, on the plea of imi- 
tating the Supreme in the only imitable feature which his 
character presents, — all this, on the plea of earning for him- 
self a share in the uninterrupted beatitude of the infinite 
Brahm. The Bible has taught us to think and believe, that 
the more we resembled our God, the less selfish we should 
become, and the* more profitable to our fellow-creatures. 
But the more nearly a Hindu approximates in resemblance 
to his supreme god, the more selfish he must become, and 
the less profitable to all around him. In other words, the 
more he is like his god, the more unamiable, odious, and de- 
testable, — the more useless and worthless must be his char- 
acter : — the more unlike he is to his god, the more must 
he advance in the knowledge and practice of all that is 
" honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report." Who, that 
has a spark of reason or common virtue or natural sensi- 
bility remaining, will not pronounce such a representa- 
tion of the Supreme God not less infamous than false, — 
not less derogatory to his honour, than utterly incompatible 



184 



with man's best interests in time and eternity ? What a 
glorious contrast does the Bible present of the felicity and 
benevolence of J ehovah ? — His perfect felicity, instead of 
consisting in idle indolent slumbers, arises from the ever- 
active contemplation of His own glorious excellencies and all- 
wise designs, — as well as from the perpetual manifestation 
of these to myriads of intelligent creatures whom, in the ex- 
ercise of His sovereign goodness, He hath formed capable 
to the full extent of their capacity, of sharing in His eternal 
beatitude without any diminution of His own. Instead of ex- 
hibiting, like the Supreme Brahm of Hinduism, an infinitude 
of selfishness, calculated to stimulate some of the worst pro- 
pensities in man, the example of Jehovah embodies an infini- 
tude of disinterested benevolence, fitted and designed to 
summon forth all that is noble in human or angelic natures. In 
the history of the divine government, there is revealed to us 
one fact, above and beyond all other facts, — a strange and 
peculiar fact, that stands isolated in solitary grandeur amid 
the depths of an unfathomable eternity, — a grand and myste- 
rious fact that has been, is now, and ever will be, the theme 
of wonder and admiration to the hosts of holy intelligences 
which swell the triumphs of the divine goodness, — the un- 
paralleled fact — that He who created all things, and without 
whom was not any thing made that was made, — that He who 
" planted heaven's bright arch and bade the planets roll," 
should condescend to assume the form of one of the feeblest, 
and certainly one of the most unworthy of the creatures he 
had made, — and this too, that he might bleed and die on 
Calvary's cross, in order to rescue a shipwrecked world from 
the fiery surges of divine wrath, and lead its ransomed occu- 
pants to the peaceful haven far removed from the windy 
storm and tempest ! Oh, in the view of a fact so marvellous, 
exhibiting love so unspeakable, are we not challenged to crush 
every uprising of ignoble emotion ? Are w T e not challenged, 
by the constraining influence of a motive which ought to 
prove resistless because it is divine, to impale our wretched 
selfishness, and nail it to the accursed tree ? 

Besides recognising the existence of one Great Spirit, Hin- 



185 



duism does homage to the grandest and most peculiar of di- 
vinely revealed facts, by distinctly acknowledging the exist- 
ence of a sacred triad or trinity, as well as the incarnation of 
deity, to accomplish certain deliverances for mankind. True 
it is that while the distinctive names are retained, the facts 
themselves, like all others, are strangely metamorphosed 
into the grossest errors. The Trinity of Hinduism is a per- 
fect contrast to the Trinity of Christianity, in its divine consti- 
tution ; as well as in the character, offices, and functions of its 
sacred persons. The incarnations of Hinduism are the most 
extravagant caricatures of the truth. Many incarnations of 
the gods are described at length ; but those of Vishnu, the 
second person of the triad, are the most celebrated. Of 
these too, there are ten which have risen to pre-eminence 
above the rest. They were designed to accomplish some 
good in rescuing the fabric of the world from the water of 
a deluge ; or the Vedas from terrific monsters ; or the earth 
from giants and wicked men. They were also destined to 
realize not a little evil ; and to exhibit a great deal of what 
was worse than ridiculous. In all these respects they can 
never be named except as contrasting with the incarnation of 
our Immanuel. Apart from the design and the objects to be 
accomplished, let us glance for a moment at the character of 
the persons incarnate. Take by far the happiest, fairest, and 
most perfect of them ; namely, Vishnu, in the form of Krishna. 
In this form he was cradled and educated among shepherds. 
In his earlier days he was occupied in tending herds and 
flocks. His youthful associates were the herd boys and milk- 
maids. When yet an infant he began to manifest his divi- 
nity, by the performance of wonderful feats, — assuming new 
and strange forms, — uplifting a huge mountain, which he held 
" over the heads of the villagers and their cattle during a 
storm," — destroying a multitude of serpents, monsters, giants, 
and tyrants. The fancy of the poet has done its utmost to 
pourtray the outward beauty, and to embellish the person of 
the favourite Krishna. He is represented as " perfect in 
loveliness ; the bloom of eternal youth rests on his counte- 
nance ; his eyes beam with immortal radiance ; the fragr a ncy 



186 



of celestial flowers breathes eternally around him ; and he 
is distinguished by a garland of roses, of jessamine, and of 
myrtle, which encircles the divine symmetry of his waist, and 
gracefully descends in blooming and odoriferous wreaths 
to his feet." And yet, with all his external beauty, en- 
hanced as it was by the decorations of art, what was the 
character of the incarnate divinity ? In his youth, he se- 
lected sixteen thousand shepherdesses, with whom he 
u sported away his hours in the gay revelries of dance and 
song," as well as in all the wantonnesses and levities of un- 
hallowed pleasure. In a quarrel with a certain monarch 
respecting some point of precedency, he became so enraged 
that he cut off the head of his rival. He was in the habit 
of practising all manner of roguish and deceitful tricks. 
With the most deliberate acts of falsehood and of theft he 
was more than once chargeable. And at his door must be 
laid the guilt of many abominations over which Christian 
purity must for ever draw the veil. What a contrast to all 
this is the character of our incarnate Redeemer ! In his 
case alone do we meet with one isolated instance of a per- 
fect original in human form. Of all the infinite variety of 
objects that has ever come within the sphere of observation, 
the character of Jesus of Nazareth stands singular and un- 
rivalled — the only solitary example within the whole range 
of reported phenomena, of absolute perfection, of unspotted 
excellence. This solitary specimen of inimitable perfection 
may be contemplated as a beautiful whole, in the combined 
assemblage of excellencies which constitute that one trans- 
parent undivided character which was " without sin." Or, 
its component parts may be examined in detail, in those 
multiplied exhibitions of it in the sacred pages, which, to our 
narrow view, may appear as the manifestations of so many 
separate and independent principles. For, as in the natural 
world, the light of the sun, when reflected from the distant 
mountain, is blue— when reflected from the evening horizon, 
it is red — when reflected from many a fleecy cloud, it is 
yellow,— and so of the rest ;— each colour is perfect in itself; 
and all combined form a perfect whole, — and this perfect 



187 



whole is a pure unsullied whiteness : — So, in the moral world, 
that holiness which characterised our Redeemer, the great 
Sun of Righteousness, when connected with benefits, is grati- 
tude — when connected with injuries, it is forgiveness — when 
connected with distress, it is compassion, — and so of the 
rest. — Each exhibition is perfect in itself ; and all combined 
make a perfect whole, — and that perfect whole is a pure and 
spotless holiness, — even that holiness which is perfect con- 
formity to the will of God, and the common bond which unites 
and harmonizes the whole spiritual universe, — that holiness 
which, attracting to itself all that is beauteous, and estimable, 
and of good report, forms the very concentration of all con- 
ceivable moral excellence ; and which, therefore, necessarily 
rendered its divine possessor " the fairest of the sons of 
men," — " the chief among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely." 

The true God is to be devoutly worshipped and adored, 
not merely in solitary seclusion, or in the privacy of the 
domestic circle, but in the public sanctuary amid the as- 
semblies of the people. On this important theme how 
precious, how consistent, how sublime the representations of 
the Bible ! Hinduism still retains all the loftiest terms ex- 
pressive of adoration and worship, prayer and praise ; but 
under these what vain, and foolish, and wicked conceptions 
does it convey ? What horrid and monstrous practices does 
it inculcate ? Hinduism has its public temples too. But 
what are they \ Black, and sullen, and stupendous piles 
reared in the fabled recesses of a past eternity, and covering 
the whole land with their deadly shade. Who are worship- 
ped therein? Not, as may readily be supposed, not the 
high and the holy One that inhabiteth eternity, but three 
hundred and thirty millions of deities instead ; — thus realiz- 
ing one of Satan's mightiest triumphs, when, as if in cruel 
derision of heaven's economy, with its one Lord of uncon- 
trolled dominion, and myriads of myriads of adoring wor- 
shippers, he has succeeded in implanting the vile delusion 
that the number of the worshipped may be treble that of 
the worshippers ! Who and whence are these ? Practically we 



188 



are still directed to the clay, and the wood, and the stone ; 
and are told that the infatuated people ransack heaven 
above, and earth below, and the waters under the earth, for 
vital forms after which to shape and fashion their lifeless 
divinities. And, when all vital forms have been exhausted, 
they next task their ingenuity and rack their imagina- 
tion in combining these into an endless variety of unnatural 
compounds, to which may emphatically be applied the lan- 
guage of the Christian poet, — 

" All monstrous, all prodigious things ; 

Abominable, unutterable, and worse 

Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived, — 

Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire." 

And, oh, what an appalling spectacle, every where to wit- 
ness multitudes endowed with reasonable souls and immor- 
tal spirits, rending the air with the deafening shout, — 
" Behold, these be thy gods, O Hindustan !" 

Knowing how often and in what aggravated forms man 
hath violated the Divine law, in thought, word, and deed, — 
how utterly incapable he is, in his fallen sinful estate, of 
complying with its unmitigated demands, — and how impos- 
sible it is, without an absolute fulfilment of its minutest re- 
quisitions, to inherit eternal life, — we are driven in despair to 
look around us for some finished substitutionary obedience. But 
instead of seeking refuge in the all-perfect everlasting right- 
eousness wrought out by the Divine Redeemer, — robed in 
which we may challenge the law of vengeance itself to become 
the law of recompense, — Hinduism, while it unqualifiedly 
acknowledges the necessity of a perfect righteousness, boldly 
assumes the possibility of man's working out, by deeds of 
merit, a righteousness of his own, which must confer a right 
and title to claim a share of the felicities of heaven, or the in- 
effable beatitude of the Eternal Spirit. Its principle end and 
design, like that of all pagan and infidel philosophy, is to che- 
rish in the corrupt heart of lapsed man, the seed and rudiment 
of the covenant of works, — to promote to the utmost, the 
spirit of that proud self-dependence ; the spirit of that hea- 



189 



ven-defying self-righteousness which has been emphatically 
styled the heresy of old nature, — to prove, how, without the 
infusion of divine grace or any obligation at all to the divine 
mercy, man may raise himself to a state of integrity and 
perfection, by the sheer force of his own inherent powers, 
and the vigorous application of his own self-cultivated facul- 
ties — yea, madly to attempt to demonstrate how vain, weak, 
and sinful man may, by his own unaided efforts, become pos- 
sessed on earth of something like plenary omnipotence, — 
may, without any interposition on the part of God, scale the 
empyrean heavens — and, overleaping the gulph between the 
finite and the infinite, may finally incorporate himself with 
the very essence of the Supreme Spirit ! 

Knowing man's guilt, as a violator of the divine law, and 
his consequent desert of eternal punishment, — how the per- 
sonal endurance of the threatened penalties would consign 
him to irremediable perdition, — and, how the heavens and 
the earth shall pass away, sooner than one jot or tittle of 
these penalties shall be abated, — we naturally inquire after 
some all-sufficient atonement for transgression. But instead 
of pointing to the one-atoning sacrifice of infinite value, — 
the mysterious all-prevailing sacrifice of the incarnate Deity, 
— Hinduism, while it distinctly inculcates the necessity of 
expiation and atonement, still directs to the blood of bulls 
and of goats, and a thousand varied tortures which shock and 
harrow the feelings of humanity ; — and it tells its deluded 
votaries that these be the propitiations for sin, which satisfy 
the divine law, and mollify and appease its own sanguinary 
divinities. 

Knowing man's vileness and pollution, we earnestly seek 
for some fountain that can cleanse from sin and all its stains. 
But instead of guiding to that which was unsealed by the 
death of the blessed Immanuel, Hinduism, while it strongly 
maintains that purification is indispensable, impels its my- 
riads of myriads of blinded followers to betake themselves 
to the troubled waters of some turbid earthly stream ; and 
declares, that these be the waters which purify the soul and 
prepare it for the joys of immortality. 



190 

• 

Knowing how religion is designed to exalt the soul from 
earth to heaven, we look for its hallowed influences on the 
mind. But instead of insuring the expansion of the mental 
powers, and the elevation of the affections to those ob- 
jects of transcendent purity which are unseen and eternal, 
Hinduism, — while it clearly recognises the utter unsatisfac- 
toriness of all temporal objects, — as if borne down under 
a conviction of the utter depravity of man's moral nature 
and its own hopeless inability to provide an adequate re- 
medy, either enjoins its unhappy victims at once to strive 
and extirpate the moral powers and sensibilities altogether ; 
or labours to reduce them under an all-absorbing system of 
religious mechanism, which soon entwines itself around every 
faculty, checks every noble aspiring, cramps every energy, 
impedes every genial current of thought and feeling, till the 
whole soul becomes sluggish, frozen, and cheerless, like the 
ice-chained hills and waters of an arctic winter. 

Knowing the visions of unmingled future bliss which cheer 
the faithful in their pilgrimage through the wilderness of 
life,— how they exult in the assured hope of being conduct- 
ed to the very fountainhead of divine pleasures, a single 
draught of which might eternally satisfy, and yet every mo- 
ment is filled with new delights, new ravishments, — how the 
fountain itself shall overflow into rivers, whose tides of love 
and joy swell higher and higher, so that every succeeding 
measure of time must superabound more than that which pre- 
ceded it, — and how, after myriads of ages, countless as the 
atoms which constitute the material universe, shall have 
rolled away, there will still remain immeasurable heights, 
unfathomable depths, and incomprehensible lengths and 
breadths of divine ineffable bliss to be enjoyed as the glad- 
some heritage of the righteous : — Knowing all this, we ear- 
nestly inquire what prospects Hinduism holds out to its hosts 
of willing worshippers ? But instead of leading them to con- 
template the joys and pleasures which are at God's right hand, 
for evermore, as their enduring portion, it destines one to mi- 
grate through millions of painful future births, — another to 
aim at a temporary abode in a region of unbounded sensual 



19) 



indulgences, — and a third, the most perfect of all, to aspire 
after a literal absorption in the Deity, which amounts to a 
loss of individuality or personal identity, that is, in very 
truth, to a total extinction of self-consciousness ; — and thus, 
the very highest reward which that gloomy system offers to 
its degraded votaries, is neither more nor less than the last 
expedient of the sceptic and the scoffer, the horrid annihila- 
tion of the Atheist ! 

But enough : — when in this manner we take the complete 
round of Hinduism, and survey it in all its parts and in 
every form, and still find that it every where spreads out 
before us, like a dark and boundless universe, — 

" Where all life dies, and death lives," — 
Oh, should we not be ready to exclaim : — Better far, escape 
from the darkness and the gloom, which the great enemy of 
God and man hath strewn over the broad and shining atmos- 
phere of truth in the benighted realm of India, and follow 
at once the Greek and Roman poets in their gorgeous fictions, 
and dwell with them in imagination amid the bowers of the 
Fortunate Islands, and luxuriate amid the loveliness of the 
gardens of the Hesperides .'—Better far, live and feast on the 
acknowledged musings of fancy, and sink into the grave amid 
the dreams of poetry, than pretend to live and feast, like these 
poor idolaters, on corruptions of divine truth, and mock repre- 
sentations of the designs of heaven, and then sink into the grave, 
deluded, unhappy, and forlorn ! And ought not all who have, 
in spirit and in truth, named the name of Jesus, and there- 
by drunk out of the fount itself of heavenly bliss, to be more 
than ever prepared to return a quick and sympathetic re- 
sponse to our petition, when, in order to demolish so gigan- 
tic a fabric of idolatry and superstition, we now call upon 
them to consecrate their prayers, their substance, and their 
lives to the promotion of the great work of redeeming love 
among all the kindreds of the nations ? 

We cannot, however, conclude without observing, that in 
every nominally Christian community, there are two distinct 
classes on whose minds all statements like the preceding 
produce very different, and even opposite effects. In regard 



192 



to the one class, the bare mention of the fact that such 
multitudes are perishing so miserably for lack of knowledge, 
will operate with irresistible potency, awaken the liveliest 
sympathy, and arouse to the most vigorous endeavours to 
relieve the spiritually destitute. And why ? Because their 
own souls have been previously made alive to the infinite 
evil and danger of sin, the glories of redemption, and the 
realities of eternity. On the other class the same statement 
of facts will produce no such effects. And why -. Because 
their own souls have not yet been awakened, not yet re- 
newed, not yet sanctified, and, consequently, not yet sus- 
ceptible of spiritual impression. Now, if the souls of men 
be una wakened from the lethargy of nature ; destitute of a 
proper, healthy, renovated tone ; devoid of moral and spiri- 
tual susceptibility. — no expression of spiritual wants and 
maladies can affect them ; no spiritual miseries, however 
dreadful ; no spiritual dangers, however appalling ; no spi- 
ritual cries for help, however piercing, can produce a vital 
sympathy — a deep and enduring impression — a keen and 
heart-stirring concern for the spiritually wretched. To the 
people who are thus devoid of spiritual susceptibility, or, in 
other words, unregenerate, — and these, alas, compose the 
fearful majority of every community. — we might present 
pictures of spiritual woe, and images of spiritual horror, and 
yet utterly fail in awakening that deep-toned sensibility 
which would rush forth resistlessly, like the electric fluid, to 
its proper object. Indeed, to address such persons at all 
on such subjects as the present, seems like beating the air 
to elicit light, or striking the flinty rock to cause the waters 
to gush out ; — or, if one becomes impassioned with his theme, 
he can only, in their eye, exhibit a spectacle similar to that 
of the man who, — in the heat of enthusiasm, the fervour of 
passion, or the madness of despair, — would turn round and 
call upon the glittering stream, and the shady grove, and 
the ragged rock, to listen to his plaint, to sympathize with 
him in his sorrow, to rejoice with him in his joy. 

In the case, then, of such persons as those now described, 
what is the true way of securing the necessary attention to 



193 



the wants and imploring cries of the heathen ? The only 
true, the only infallible way must be, first to excite a spiritual 
susceptibility in their own minds, — to awaken in themselves 
a lively personal concern for the salvation of their own souls. 
This grand end being once accomplished, the most barren 
statement of spiritual destitution will suffice. This left un- 
done, all facts and arguments will prove of little or no 
avail. If facts, and arguments, and vivid representations 
were visible tangible measureable quantities, we might raise 
them, pile above pile, till in bulk the aggregate equalled 
the lofty mountains — possessed of force more than sufficient 
to crush into atoms all dwarfish objections, and so over- 
whelm the soul, — but not sufficient to melt it into the ten- 
derness of spiritual sympathy, or subdue it into the calm 
resoluteness of spiritual conviction. To effect this end, the 
soul must be brought into contact with another substance, 
even the imperishable Word of God. To this union of the 
soul and word must be applied the baptism of fire — the 
arousing life-giving energy of the Spirit of God. Then, in- 
deed, would darkness be suddenly exchanged for light, and 
coldness for warmth, and deadness for vitality, and im- 
penetrable hardness for the quick and ready susceptibility 
of every moral and spiritual impression ; — and then would 
the bare statement about dead and dying men — miserable 
men daily sinking into the abyss of an unprovided eternity 
— cause those awakened susceptible spirits to rush forth 
instantaneously to the relief of the perishing — aye, though 
the price of the effort were death ! 

Oh, then, that the Lord would rend His heavens, and 
come down as in the days of old, and pour out the plenti- 
ful effusion of His Holy Spirit, without whose almighty 
energy no soul " dead in trespasses and sins' 1 can ever be 
quickened or savingly impressed ! Oh, that thousands and 
tens of thousands in every city and district of this profes- 
sed Christian land, were stirred up to cry out, What must 
we do to be saved ? For then, — but not till then, — would all 
our entreaties and all our appeals in behalf of the perishing 
heathen be cheerfully and universally responded to ; — then, 

N 



194 



would contributions be spontaneously poured in rich profusion 
into the Christian treasury ; — then, would thousands, and 
tens of thousands of prayers be daily ascending into the ears 
of Jehovah, Lord of hosts — then, would the arm of Omni- 
potence be moved by a power which Omnipotence alone 
can bestow; — then, would the streams of grace descend 
like rain upon the mown grass, or showers that water 
the spring ; — then, might the earth be made to yield her 
richest increase, and the whole earth be filled with the 
glory of the great Jehovah ; — and then might all kindreds, 
and tribes, and nations be ready to combine in one song — 
one universal shout of hallelujah unto Him that sitteth upon 
the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever. — Amen. 



CHAPTER III. 



PRACTICAL SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE LEADING SUPERSTITIONS AND 
IDOLATRIES OF EASTERN INDIA. 



Classical Enthusiasm of Sir W. Jones, when approaching the 
shores of India — Violent disturbance of such an emotion in the 
mind of a Christian, on the sudden appearance of one of the most 
celebrated idol temples — Juggernaih, the horrors and extent of his 
worship — Sagor Island, and its hundreds of thousands of annual 
pilgrims — The zeal of the heathen contrasted with the indifference 
of professing Christians — Physical aspect of the banks of the 
Ganges compared with the moral aspect of the natives — Human 
bodies floating on the surface of the stream — Causes of so painful 
a spectacle — Various exemplifications — Murders in the name of hu- 
manity and religion — Contrast of the spirit of the Gospel — The 
worshippers of Shiva, their clay symbols and morning orisons — 
Besides the daily ceremonies, great annual festivals celebrated in 
honour of the principal Divinities — Two selected as examples — 
The Goddess Durga, her character and exploits — Detailed account 
of her annual festival, with its multitude of temporary images, ce- 
remonies, free-will offerings, bloody sacrifices, and grotesque pro- 
cessions — Liberality of heathens contrasted with the scanty contri- 
butions of professing Christians — Reflections on the final triumphs 
of the Gospel over the superstitions and idolatries of the Ganges — 
The Goddess Kali, her sanguinary character and worship — The 
Patroriess of thieves and murderers — The Charak Pujah, or 
swinging festival — Various self-inflicted tortures described — Ac- 
count of the great day of the festival, when multitudes resort to the 
celebrated temple of Kali-ghat, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta — 
Sketch of the appearance of the groups of devotees, of the temple 
and monster-block of the idol — Cruel practices of the worshippers 
— Their frantic revelries contrasted with the solemnities of a Chris- 



196 



Han Sabbath in Great Britain — Call upon Christians to come 
forth to " the help of the Lord against the mighty" 

When Sir William Jones, on his voyage to Bengal, found 
one evening, on inspecting the observations of the day, that 
India lay before him, and Persia on the left, whilst a breeze 
from Arabia blew nearly on the stern, his mind caught fire 
at the enchanting novelty of his situation. " It gave me, 1 *' 
says he, " inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the 
midst of so noble an amphitheatre, almost encircled by the 
vast regions of Asia, which has ever been esteemed the 
nurse of sciences, the inventress of delightful and useful arts, 
the scene of glorious actions, — fertile in the productions of 
human genius, abounding in natural wonders, and infinitely 
diversified in the forms of religion and government, in the 
laws, manners, customs, and languages, as well as in the fea- 
tures and complexions of men." 

Now, suppose any one of those whom we now address, — 
fraught with the love of God and of souls, and bent on an em- 
bassy of mercy, — were on a voyage to India, and the place of 
your destination the same as that of the great orientalist : — 
suppose too, that your mind, like his, were amply stored with 
the richest treasures of classic lore : — suppose, farther still, 
that you were actually approaching that portion of the " noble 
amphitheatre" which the Great Mogul, in his imperial decrees, 
constantly designated " the paradise of nations," — and that 
your proximity to the wondrous scene had enkindled your 
soul into unwonted ardour, and had caused the brightest vi- 
sions of " story and of song," to start into seeming realities 
before the entranced imagination : — what would you expect 
first to behold \ — Nought, it may be, resembling what one of 
the earlier Mahammadan historians gravely asserts he found, 
namely, "trees of enormous size, growing out of the earth, 
like other trees, the substance of which consisted of the pur- 
est gold," — thus furnishing the antitype of the otherwise bold 
imagery of our great Epic Poet, when he writes of " ambro- 
sial fruits and vegetable gold."" Nought so marvellous as this, 
may you really anticipate ; and yet, your expectations, raised 



197 



to the highest pitch, may throw you into a fever of anxiety 
for the first glimpse of the long wished for land of promise. 

Suddenly the master of the vessel may be heard joyously 
to exclaim, " Ah, there it is — there it is, at last." " What 
is — what is 2" — may you impatiently demand — while, with 
thrilling eagerness, you turn your eyes towards the shore. 
But nothing may you at first be able to detect. The reason 
soon becomes obvious. That part of the coast is low and 
flat, consisting of a broad sandy beach, thinly skirted with 
tufts of the cocoa, and other species of palm-tree. It con- 
tains but one conspicuous object, — the summit of which the 
experienced eye of the commander had caught in the dim 
and distant horizon, long before the mainland appeared. 
And what is this ? It is the loftiest object with which that 
region is adorned or desecrated, — an object, the name of 
which the labours of the Christian philanthropist have ren- 
dered as familiar as any household sound, — an object which 
our hardy mariners have turned to far better account than 
the native proprietors ; since, from its towering promi- 
nence, it is used by them as their principal sea mark in 
guiding them to the mouth of the Granges : — It is none other 
than the celebrated pagoda or temple of Juggernath, in 
Orissa. 

The temple of Juggernath, or rather Jagat-nath, " the 
lord of the world ! " — A glorious title impiously attributed to 
the senseless object which bears it, as if in daring insult to 
the Majesty of heaven, — yet well befitting, as expressive of 
that despotic " lordship" which has, from generation to gene- 
ration, been exercised over the myriads of " a world lying in 
wickedness," who have fallen victims to its destructive sway. 
Ah ! if you possess the spirit of Christian zeal and love, how 
must your classic musings be cruelly broken in upon and dis- 
persed at the utterance of that tragic name ! And, when at 
length your own eyes are fastened on the huge red granite 
pile, how must the gay visions of fancy evanish before the 
rush of other recollections, and widely differing associations I 
While actually gazing at it, can you help recalling to re- 
membrance all that you had ever read or heard of the scene 



198 



before you \ Impossible. All must come crowding into the 
mental perspective with a peculiar vividness never felt before. 
And when you think of the monster-block of the idol, with 
its frightfully grim and distorted visage, so justly styled the 
" Moloch of the East ;"" sitting enthroned amid thousands of 
massive sculptures, the representative emblems of that 
cruelty and vice which constitute the very essence of his 
worship : — when you think of the countless multitudes that 
annually congregate there from all parts of India, many of 
them measuring the whole distance of their weary pilgrim- 
age with their own bodies : — when you think of the merit- 
earning austerities constantly practised by crowds of de- 
votees and religious mendicants, around the precincts of the 
" holy city," — some remaining all day " with their head on 
the ground and their feet in the air ; others with their 
bodies entirely covered with earth,— some cramming their 
eyes with mud and their mouths with straw ; while others lie 
extended in a puddle of water, — here, one man lying with 
his foot tied to his neck, or with a pot of fire on his breast ; 
and there, a third, enveloped in a net-work of ropes :" — when, 
besides these self-inflicted torments, you think of the frightful 
amount of involuntary suffering and wretchedness, arising 
from the exhaustion of toilsome pilgrimages, the cravings of 
famine, and the scourgings of pestilence : — when you think of 
the day of high festival, — how the " horrid king " is dragged 
forth from his temple, and mounted on his lofty car in the 
presence of hundreds of thousands that cause the very earth 
to shake with shouts of " Victory to Juggernath our lord," — 
how the officiating high-priest, stationed in front of the 
elevated idol, commences the public service by a loathsome 
pantomimic exhibition, accompanied with the utterance of 
filthy blasphemous songs, to which the vast multitude at 
intervals respond, not in strains of tuneful melody, but in 
loud " yells of approbation, united with a kind of hissing 
applause :"— when you think of the carnage that ensues in 
the name of sacred offering, — how, as the ponderous machine 
rolls on, " grating harsh thunder," one and another of the 
more enthusiastic votaries throw themselves beneath the 



199 



wheels, and are instantly crushed to pieces, the infatuated 
victims of hellish superstition : — when you think of the nu- 
merous Golgothas that bestud the neighbouring plain, where 
" the dogs, jackals, and vultures seem to live on human 
prey ;" and of those bleak and barren sands that are for- 
ever whitened with the skulls and bones of deluded pilgrims 
which lie bleaching in the sun : — when you think of all this, 
and much more, which Buchanan and others have committed 
to immortal record, and have the whole pictured to the 
mind's eye more vividly than it had ever been, in conse- 
quence of the immediate presence of the temple itself as an 
object to the eye of sense, — Oh, in the midst of such heart- 
rending scenes, how must your glowing classical reveries 
appear as incongruous as would the songs of boisterous mer- 
riment amid requiems for the dead ! 

Still, you may have no adequate conception of the extent 
of Juggernath's dominion. You had heard before of the 
celebrated temple in Orissa, at which you are now supposed 
to be gazing. And, perhaps, your only consolation may be 
founded on the belief, that, in beholding it, you have not 
only seen the worst, but have seen all. What, then, must 
be your feelings when assured of the contrary ? As there 
are numbers of sacred rivers in India, — but the Ganges, 
from being the most sacred, has acquired a monopoly of 
fame, — so there are many shrines of Juggernath in India, 
though the one at Puri, from being the largest and most 
venerated, has, in like manner, acquired exclusive celebrity. 
In hundreds, or rather thousands of places, where there are 
no temples, properly so called, there are still images and cars 
of Juggernath, — fashioned after the model of the great pro- 
totypes at Orissa. There is scarcely a large village in all Ben- 
gal without its car of Juggernath. In Calcutta and its neigh- 
bourhood there are scores of them, — varying in size from a few- 
feet up to thirty or forty in height. What a view must open 
up to you of the fearful extent and magnitude of this destruc- 
tive superstition, when you try to realize the fact, that, on the 
anniversary occasion of the car-festival, all the millions of 
Bengal are in motion ; — that, when the great car at Puri 



200 



is dragged forth amid the shouts and acclamations of 
hundreds of thousands assembled from all parts of India, on 
the very same day, and at the very same hour, there are 
hundreds of cars rolled along throughout the widely scattered 
districts and cities and villages of the land : — So that there 
are not merely hundreds of thousands, but literally millions, 
simultaneously engaged in the celebration of orgies, so 
stained with licentiousness and blood, that, in the compari- 
son, we might almost pronounce the Bacchanalia of Greece 
and Rome innocent and pure ! 

Leaving the temple of Juggernath, you direct your course 
eastward to the estuary of the Granges, — glad to escape 
from the contemplation of an object which has so fatally 
eclipsed your bright visions of India. But you soon find 
that, bad as Juggernath may be, his temple is only the be- 
ginning of horrors. Worthy sentinel it verily is, to be 
stationed at the portals of so benighted a land ! But it is no 
more than the sentinel. The next part of the coast which 
you reach is the Island of Ganga Sagor, — where the great 
western or holiest branch of the Ganges unites its waters 
with those of the Indian Ocean, — so called from the Sanskrit 
appellation, sagor, or sea, and ganga or river ; which latter 
term is now appropriated and emphatically applied to denote 
the Ganges, the chief of rivers ; on the same principle that 
bible, or book, is made to distinguish the Word of God as 
the chief of books. Looking at the island you see nothing 
peculiarly attractive about it. On the contrary, it is a flat, 
swampy, and cheerless shore, bordered with tall forest trees 
and thick underwood, and rank putrid vegetation, — consti- 
tuting an apparently interminable jungle, which one might 
easily imagine, as Bishop Heber truly remarks, to be " the 
habitation of every thing monstrous, disgusting, and danger- 
ous, from the tiger and cobra de capello down to the scor- 
pion and musquito, — from the thunder-storm to the fever." 
And yet this dreary island is the scene of one of the most 
celebrated places of pilgrimage in India. Its peculiar sane- 



201 



tity arises from its situation at the junction or point of con- 
fluence of the Ganges and the ocean, — where the purifying 
virtue of the waters is believed to be mightily increased. 
Here there is a ruinous temple, erected in honour of the 
great sage Kapila, — the founder of one of the chief schools of 
Indian philosophy, — who is here reverenced as a god. It 
is usually occupied by a few disciples of the sage, of the 
class of ascetics who always keep an arm raised above their 
heads ; — some of whom are every year carried off to furnish 
a repast to some of their voracious neighbours of the jungle. 
Twice in the year, at the full moon in November and Janu- 
ary, vast crowds of Hindus resort to this temple and neigh- 
bourhood, to perform obsequies for the good of their de- 
ceased ancestors, and to practise various ablutions in waters 
of such purifying efficacy. 

But it is the scale of magnitude on which, as in the case 
of Juggernath and other holy places, the pilgrimage is con- 
ducted that utterly overpowers the very imagination. The 
situation being insular, the pilgrims must provide themselves 
with boats of all sorts and sizes according to their respective 
wealth and rank. The numbers fluctuate exceedingly, 
though at all times very great. This fluctuation ought to lead 
to the greatest caution in drawing general conclusions as to 
the increase or decrease of superstition. A few years ago, 
the number was remarked to be unprecedentedly diminished. 
Some zealous friends of India, forgetful of the real cause, — 
namely, the previous visitation of a tremendous hurricane and 
deluge, which swept away tens of thousands of the wretched 
inhabitants, and left the rest to pine under the pressure of 
famine and pestilence, — were eager to infer that the diminu- 
tion must, in part at least, be attributed to the effect of the 
public preaching and animated appeals annually addressed 
to the assembled multitudes by a few faithful and devoted 
servants of the Most High. It was concluded, that the 
bands of superstition must be greatly loosed,., and its fet- 
ters broken, — and that the whole fabric must be tottering 
to the dust. Many not less zealous, but more schooled and 
soberized by sad experience, pronounced the glowing infer- 



202 



ence to be premature. And this eventually proved to be the 
case. At the January festival of 1837, it would seem that 
the number of pilgrims greatly exceeded any thing remember- 
ed by the present generation. It was formally announced in 
one of the public journals of Calcutta, that, on that occa- 
sion, upwards of sixty thousand boats of every description 
were actually counted, abreast of the most sacred landing- 
place on the island, — and that, striking an average from the 
numbers ascertained to be on board different kinds of boats, 
there could not be assembled fewer than three hundred 
thousand pilgrims, many of them from the most remote 
parts of India ; — a number exceeding the entire population 
of Glasgow ; the second most populous city in the British 
islands ; — a number exceeding the population of Perthshire, 
the largest and most populous county in Scotland ! 

People in this country are ever apt tobegrudgethe time which 
they are called to expend in devotional exercises. The very 
Sabbath is felt to be a burden, because it is an interruption 
to their money-making and pleasure-seeking pursuits. And as 
for sermons or religious meetings on other days, they are in 
general noted as nuisances. Business, business, — profession, 
profession, — are Grod-silencing words. If there be any affair 
connected with this world, — business, labour — all can be 
readily laid aside. If an agitator, or a demagogue, visit one 
of our cities, the poorest artizan can resolve on having a holi- 
day. If there be any rareeshow, — if there be an exhibition 
of wild beasts, — if some poor jaded irrationals be goaded on a 
race course, — if some mercenary speculator propose to soar 
into the clouds for the amusement of his fellows, — thousands 
and tens of thousands of rich and poor can cut short all 
their engagements, and abandon all their labours. But an- 
nounce a day for solemn fasting and prayer ; or announce 
any religious solemnity whatsoever, — and up start hundreds 
of mock-patriots to declaim about robbing the poor of their 
time, and interfering with the business, the pleasures, and 
enjoyments of the rich and powerful. Ah, how different the 
conduct of the poor devotees of a fatal superstition in 
India ! They, at least, are sincere. And in proof of their 



203 



sincerity, they submit to sacrifices of time, and comfort, and 
wealth. Because they believe that some inexplicable holy 
influence will be communicated by a visit to the dark dis- 
mal and deadly island of Ganga Sagor, hundreds of thou- 
sands will annually abandon their families and their homes ; 
they will travel for months exposed to manifold discomforts 
and dangers, — penury and famine and pestilence often 
staring them in the face ; they will persevere, though num- 
bers of their companions fall by the way, an unresisting 
prey to birds of the air and beasts of the field ; they will 
persevere, though they themselves be sinking under accu- 
mulated sufferings, — though death hover over them with 
menacing visage, and they have the certain prospect of leav- 
ing their carcasses strewn in a far distant land, unnoticed 
and unpitied, unburied and unknown. Would that the 
misguided zeal of myriads of deluded pilgrims in the East 
might put to shame the criminal worldliness and indiffer- 
ence of nominal professors in this highly favoured land ! 

After reaching the scene of pilgrimage, how many of both 
sexes, — particularly the aged, — present themselves as a free- 
will offering to the insatiable guardian deities of the conse- 
crated spot ! How many have been involuntarily sacri- 
ficed ! The Prophet asks, " Can a woman forget her suck- 
ing child, that she should not have compassion on the son 
of her womb V Superstition at once responds, " She may 
forget." — And if the watery shrine at Ganga Sagor were 
animated and vocal, it could with direful emphasis re- 
echo the response, " She has ten thousand times forgotten." 
For there is the unhallowed spot, and the January festival 
the solemn occasion on which hundreds of mothers were 
wont, in fulfilment of solemn vows, to throw their uncon- 
scious smiling infants into the turbid waters ! — And, oh ! 
horrid to relate ! — They bewailed the sacrifice as lost, and 
the gods unpropitiated, if these commissioned not the shark 
and other monsters of the deep to crush and devour their 
hapless offspring before their own eyes ! Blessed be God, 
the open and public sacrifice of children on occasion of the 
great festival, is now prohibited by the British Government. 



204 



But, while the sentiments of the people remain unchanged, no 
enactment of Government can wholly suppress the cruel rite. 

It may be alleged that these particular sacrifices are no 
where recommended in the Hindu Shastras ; — and that it 
may thence be inferred that they must be as contrary to 
Hinduism as they are revolting to humanity. But such an 
allegation, even if well founded, would by no means legitimatize 
the inference. There are fundamental principles in Hindu- 
ism, whence the propriety and religious meritoriousness of such 
sacrifices must follow as a natural and necessary consequence. 
A solemn vow to the gods, made in peculiar circumstances, 
has all the force of a religious ordinance, and its fulfilment 
is held equally obligatory as any divinely revealed pre- 
cept. Hence, it matters little that public sacrifices of help- 
less children are prohibited at Sagor. As long as Hindu- 
ism reigns dominant, mothers will still make vows, and 
devote their offspring to the gods ; — and hundreds of chil- 
dren will annually perish by the unnatural hands of those 
who gave them birth. By the prohibition of infanticide at 
Sagor, one of the outlets of the great stream of superstition 
may be forcibly obstructed ; but the stream itself is not 
thereby drained off, neither is its violence in aught diminished. 
It is only made to change one of its channels. And so long 
as the fountainhead overflows in copiousness, feeding the 
mighty current as it rolls along, one outlet may be shut up 
after another ; but no sooner is the opposing embankment 
completed, than the stream opens up to itself an adequate 
outlet elsewhere. 



On leaving the Island of Sagor, you enter the broad stream 
of the Ganges. It displays a very deep and dark yellow 
tint. And no wonder. For it has been calculated, that 
were two thousand East Indiamen, each laden with fifteen 
hundred tons, to sail down every day in the twelvemonth, 
they would not transport as much solid matter to the ocean 
as is daily conveyed by the current of the mighty stream itself. 
In your progress upwards, you must first encounter the dismal 



205 



mud banks, and dingy forests, and impenetrable thickets of 
the lower Sunderbunds, — that marvellous labyrinth of wood 
and water, formed by the crossing and recrossing of innu- 
merable creeks and channels, — the receptacle for ages of all 
manner of destructive creatures, and still more destructive 
exhalations which load the atmosphere with pestilence and 
death. For, spots there are amid the recesses of these 
gloomy solitudes, so bravely bent on outrivalling the fabled 
Styx and Lethe and Acheron of the ancients, as to refuse 
existence even to savage or reptile life ; — solitudes where, 
save when the tempest rages, silence reigns deep, awful, and 
unbroken as that of the sepulchre. 

As you emerge from these dreary regions, the jungle gra- 
dually recedes from the shore. The banks become enlivened by 
the presence of man. Bambu cottages are seen every where 
to abound, mantled with creeping plants which intertwine their 
tendrils and their leaves ; — and scattered villages embosomed 
in plantations of guavas, and mangoes, and tamarinds. And 
fields there are of fresh and vivid green, every where inter- 
spersed with groves of towering cocoa-palms, which gracefully 
wave their feathery plumes in the breeze, — and plantains, 
and palmiras, and banyans of rich variegated foliage, — and 
plants, and flowering shrubs of every hue and colour. All 
bespeak the exuberant bounties of a gracious God. — While 
the stirring novelty of the whole scene ; the unimaginable 
luxuriance of the herbage ; the singular exotic appearance 
of all around ; " the green-house-like feel, and tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere and the fresh flush of vegetable 
fragrance wafted from the shore ; — all, all are calculated to 
regale the senses, exhilarate the spirits, and diffuse through 
the whole soul a strange delirium of buoyant hope and joy. 

Such pleasurable sensations, however, are doomed to be 
transient and short-lived. You have escaped from the region 
of jungle and of pestilence. But you have not escaped, 
you cannot escape, from the emblems and memorials of a 
loathsome superstition. These seem ever present, and every 
where present. It is truly a land of bright and glorious 
sunshine ; yet a land of moral darkness that may be felt. 



206 



At every step you are irresistibly reminded of the exceeding 
truthfulness of the poet's contrast and lamentation : 

What though the spicy breezes 

Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, 
And every prospect pleases, 

And man alone is vile. — 

What though with lavish kindness, 

The gifts of God are strewn, 
The heathen in his blindness, 

Bows down to wood and stone ! 

One of the first things which may violently arrest the flow 
of your enjoyment, may be the disgusting spectacle of one 
or more human bodies slowly floating past the vessel,— some 
white as snow, others black and blue in different stages 
of decay— all of them uncovered ; and upon them perched 
ravenous vultures, or carrion crows, tearing and devouring 
the mangled remnants of miserable humanity. With your 
British feelings all alive, and not yet blunted by familiarity 
with such exhibitions you are aroused. You cannot but 
remember how, at home, were a single dead body disco- 
vered in a stream, it would create a sensation through the 
whole neighbourhood ; furnish for days a fertile topic for 
conjecture and remark ; and call forth the investigation of 
the judges of the land. Impelled by your own sense of 
civilized, not to talk of Christian decency, you loudly vo- 
ciferate in the ears of the native boatmen, who ply their craft 
all around, to rescue the body from such shameless exposure. 
You are only laughed to scorn for your pains. On ply the 
natives merrily chaunting their boat song of " Allah, Allah," 
— and even if their oars impinge on the floating carcass, they 
seem to care no more than they would for the contact of a 
log of wood. 

Surprised and horrified, you inquire into the cause of 
such shocking unconcern. The cause is not single ; it is 
manifold. 

F irst of all, with one or two unimportant exceptions, such 
as that of the weaver caste, whose dead are buried— and the 
women of which enjoy the unenviable privilege of burying, in- 



207 



stead of burning themselves, with the bodies of their deceased 
husbands, — it is not the custom in that country to honour the 
departed with the rites of sepulture. In the sacred books 
it is required that the body be burnt to ashes on the funeral 
pile — the process being accompanied by various religious 
ceremonies. The consecrated places for burning the dead 
are usually at the ghats, or flights of steps at the landing 
places on the margin of a river. These ghats at all times 
present spectacles the most disgusting to every feeling mind. 
The enclosed space may not admit of more than half a dozen 
being consumed at one time, — while a score or two may be 
in readiness to undergo the fiery rite; — some dead, some 
groaning in their last agonies, and some putrefying. Hence 
the noxious effluvia which infect the atmosphere. The fuel 
is often brought, and piled up before the eyes of the dying 
man ; who is thus treated, as Mr Ward has justly observed, 
somewhat " like an English criminal, when his coffin is carried 
with him to the place of execution." When once he is laid on 
the pile, should nature suddenly rally, and the supposed dead 
man attempt to rise, the body is believed to be possessed by 
an evil spirit, and is instantly beat down with a hatchet or 
bambu. Who need wonder that such practices should tend 
to extinguish the kindlier feelings in the breast of a Hindu I 
If the poverty of the relations should prevent their 
furnishing the expenses of concremation, the alternative is 
left them, after applying fire to the face, to cast the dead 
into some sacred stream. Hence, one of the most fertile 
causes of converting the Ganges into a liquid cemetery. In 
times of epidemic visitation, the numbers thrown into its 
waters are prodigious. Some years ago, when cholera raged 
with awful violence in Calcutta, it was estimated that about 
four hundred bodies, for the most part carried along the 
streets, almost in a state of nudity, slung upon bambus, were 
cast into the river from the town daily, for several weeks. 
In such cases, the spectacle every where presented is as 
revolting as it must be brutalizing. Among the ships and 
boats at anchor, bodies are constantly floating. They are 
often instantly thrown ashore ; and then are apt to become 



208 



a prey to pariah dogs and jackals. At the principal angles 
of the river, however, men are stationed, with long poles, to 
push them again into the stream ; and as the tide rushes 
strongly in, they are rolled back. Thus are they driven 
backwards and forwards by the eddying waters, until they 
dissolve into putrefaction by the rapid action of the ele- 
ments, or are devoured by the birds of prey or the monsters 
of the deep. To this degrading spectacle, as well as public 
nuisance, the attention of Government has been again and 
again directed. And lately, the expedient has been adopted 
of maintaining several boats, with a complement of police, 
for the express purpose of sinking all bodies that might be 
found afloat in the stream. In the single month of July last 
year it was officially reported, that abreast of Calcutta alone, 
upwards of a thousand human bodies were seized and sunk ! 

But there are other sources of supply. Profoundly as 
the Ganges is reverenced by the living, it is not less so in 
the prospect of death. The sacred writings are prodigal of 
imagery in extolling its praises. In one of them, the sacred 
stream is thus addressed : — " goddess, the owl that lodges 
in the hollow of a tree on thy banks, is exalted beyond mea- 
sure ; while the emperor, whose palace is far from thee, 
though he may possess a million of stately elephants, and 
may have the wives of millions of conquered enemies, is 
nothing." The distant sight of it is declared to be attended 
with present benefit : the application of a few drops of its 
water may remove much pollution : daily bathing in it is 
followed with inestimable advantages, both in this life, and 
in that which is to come : immersion in it on certain auspi- 
cious days of the moon and certain conjunctions of the 
planets, may wipe away the sins of ten births, or even of a 
thousand : ablution, accompanied with the prescribed prayers, 
on particular days of high festival, may entitle to a residence 
in one of the heavens of the gods, and insure an amount of 
blessings which no imagination can conceive. 

In the prospect of dissolution, its waters are fraught with 
peculiar efficacy in obliterating the stains of transgression. To 
think intensely on the Ganges at the hour of death, should 



209 



the patient be far distant, will not fail of a due reward : 
to die in the full view of it, is pronounced most holy : to 
die on the margin, in its immediate presence, still holier : 
but to die partly immersed in the stream, besmeared with 
its sacred mud, and imbibing its purifying waters, holiest of 
all. Yea ; such is its transforming efficacy, that if one 
perish in it by accident, or in a state of unconsciousness, he 
will be happy. And what is more wonderful still, it is 
affirmed, that " if a worm or an insect, or a grasshopper, or 
any tree growing by its side die in it, it will attain the highest 
felicity in a future state. " On the other hand, to die in the 
house, when within one's power to be conveyed to the river's 
side, is held the greatest misfortune. But if distance or 
any sudden contingency interpose a barrier, the preserva- 
tion of a single bone, for the purpose of committing it at 
some future time to the Ganges, is believed to contribute 
essentially to the salvation of the deceased. — Hence the 
origin of many of those heart-rending scenes that are con- 
stantly exhibited along the banks of the Ganges, — scenes, 
from the contemplation of which, nature recoils, — scenes, at 
the recital of which, humanity shudders. 

When sickness is thought to be unto death, the patient, 
willing or unwilling, is hurried to the banks of the river. 
At some ghats there are open porches where the wealthy 
may find refuge ; or they may seek for partial shelter under 
a temporary canopy. But for the great mass of the people 
there is no resource. They die, stretched on the muddy 
bank ; often without a mat beneath them ; exposed to the 
piercing rays of the sun by day, and to the chilling damps 
and dews of night. Such exposure were enough speedily to 
reduce the healthiest, and paralyse the most robust. How 
then must it aggravate the last pangs of nature in a frame 
exhausted by age or disease % How must it accelerate the 
hour of dissolution \ 

Here, you see a wretched creature writhing in agony, and 
no means whatever employed for his recovery or relief. You 
propose to supply some remedy. Your offer is scornfully 
rejected. " He was brought here to die," say those around 





210 



him, " and live he cannot now." There, you see some young 
men roughly carrying a sickly female to the river. You ask, 
What is to be done with her ? The reply may be — " We 
are going to give her up to Ganga to purify her soul, that she 
may go to heaven ; for, she is our mother ." Here, you behold 
a man and woman sitting by the stream, busily engaged in 
besprinkling a beloved child with the muddy water, endea- 
vouring to soothe his dying agonies with the monotonous 
but plaintive lullaby, — " 'Tis blessed to die by Ganga, my 
son!" — "To die by Ganga is blessed, my son!" There, 
you behold another seated up to the middle in water. The 
leaves of a sacred plant are put into his mouth. He is ex- 
horted to repeat, or, if he is unable, his relations repeat in 
his behalf, the names of the principal gods. The mud is 
spread over the breast and forehead, and thereon is written 
the name of his tutelary deity. The attendant priests next 
proceed to the administration of the last fatal rite, by pour- 
ing mud and water down his throat, crying out, — "Oh, Mother 
Ganga, receive his soul ! " The dying man may be roused to 
sensibility by the violence. He may implore his friends to 
desist, as he does not yet wish to die. His earnest supplica- 
tions, and the rueful expression of his countenance, may 
stir up your bowels of compassion, and you may vehemently 
expostulate with his legalized murderers in his favour. They 
coolly reply, — " It is our religion : It is our religion. Our 
Shastra recommends him so to die for the benefit of his 
soul." They then drown his entreaties amid shouts of 
" Hurri bol ! hurri bol !" and persevere in filling his mouth 
with water till he gradually expire;-— stifled, suffocated, mur- 
dered in the name of humanity — in the name of religion ! — 
and that, too, it may be, by his own parents ; by his own 
brothers or sisters ; by his own sons or daughters ! 

Sometimes, strangers, or those who may have no relations, 
are abandoned on the bank, without undergoing the cere- 
mony of drinking Ganges water. Of these, some have been 
seen creeping along, with the flesh half eaten off their backs 
by the birds ; others, with their limbs torn by dogs and 
jackals ; and others, still, partly covered by insects, while as 



211 



yet the principle of life was not wholly extinct ! The circum- 
stance that they are strangers, or of a different caste from 
the passers-by, is quite enough to steel the heart against 
all compassion ; and to straiten the hands that they will not 
save. Hence, may a dead body be occasionally seen lying a 
ivhole day in a public thoroughfare ; and sometimes actually 
trampled on by the throng of an idolatrous procession ! 

The constant exhibition of scenes like the preceding, — 
scenes, which are to be witnessed, somewhere or other, every 
day, yea, and every hour of every day, along the banks of the 
Granges, — may well justify the paradoxical exhortation of the 
late Mr Thomas, — " Do not send men of compassion here, 
for you will soon break their hearts ! Do send men of com- 
passion here, where millions perish for lack of knowledge. 11 

Think of the helpless man in the parable, who lay, strip- 
ped of his garment, wounded, and half-dead, by the wayside. 
Think of the good Samaritan who, though a stranger, when 
he saw him, had compassion on him, and went to him, and 
bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine ; and set him 
on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care 
of him, and gave him to the host, and said unto him, — " Take 
care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest, when I come 
again, I will repay thee. 11 Contrast this picture with any that 
has now been exhibited. If the one be a personification of 
the spirit and genius of Christianity, and the other a fit per- 
sonification of the spirit and genius of Hinduism, — tell us 
which bears upon its face the impress of a heavenly descent ; 
and which the stamp and character of an ascent from below J 

It is impossible to ascertain with absolute precision, to 
what extent the inhuman practice prevails. Our only re- 
source is a reference to the statements of credible eye-wit- 
nesses resident at different stations. One writes, that 
among the higher classes in particular, " hardly any one is 
allowed to depart this life in peace at home, but is taken 
to the banks of the river, and there offered . up a sac- 
rifice to Brahmanical superstition. 11 Another declares, 
that the Brahmans can, as may serve their interest, de- 
vote any sick branch of a family to death ; and that by 



212 



this barbarous custom " incredible numbers are destroyed. 1 ' 
A third states, that from Hurdwar, — where the Ganges 
gushes through an opening in the mountains, and whence it 
flows with a smooth navigable stream to its mouth, at the head 
of the Bay of Bengal, — isadistance of twelve hundred miles; — 
that, in its course through the plains, it receives eleven rivers, 
some of them as large as the Rhine, and none smaller than 
the Thames, besides innumerable smaller streams ; — that, 
through its whole course, and along many of its tributaries, 
the custom of exposing the sick more or less prevails ; — 
that, besides those who dwell in its immediate vicinity, many 
are brought from great distances to enjoy the privilege of 
dying on its banks ; — and that, if we " consider the dense- 
ness of the population, and the number of villages towns 
and cities near which the river flows, it is easy to conceive 
that the loss of human life, occasioned by this custom, must 
be of awful extent A fourth records it as his " deliberate 
opinion, that yearly, thousands of persons would recover 
from their diseases if this absurd custom were abolished." 
A fifth, of still larger experience than any yet quoted, 
strongly avers that " the death of vast multitudes is pro- 
cured or hastened annually, by immersing a part of the body, 
in a state of dangerous weakness, in the Ganges, and by 
pouring large quantities of water into the mouth of the 
dying person." 

From what we have ourselves been constrained to witness, 
as well as from oral communications received from respectable 
natives, combined with statements like the preceding, we have 
no hesitation in asserting, that, — from exposure amid all the 
inclemencies of weather, and partial immersion in the stream, 
and frequent suffocation with its muddy waters, — thousands 
are annually hurried to premature death; and that hundreds 
are made to die, who, were it not for these cruel rites, would, 
beyond all doubt, recover, and regain a perfect restoration 
of wonted health. And yet, acts which, in a Christian land, 
would be treated as wilful murder, — far from being regarded 
as dishonourable, or criminal, or deserving of public exe- 
cration, — are reputed holy and meritorious, and demonstra- 



213 



tive of the greatest possible affection and kindness. Such 
is the stupifying power of a baleful superstition. To crown 
the whole, it must be added that, according to the tenets of 
Hinduism, when once the sick are forcibly brought down to 
the river's side to die, they cannot legally be restored to 
health. The inhuman rite of administering Ganges water, in 
its relation to the attainment of future beatitude, is deemed 
to the full as important as the ceremony of extreme unction 
in the Church of Rome. Nor is the similitude less striking, 
as regards some of the consequences in this life. He to 
whom extreme unction is applied is devoted to death, and 
placed beyond the pale of all means of recovery ; — he who is 
made to partake of Ganges water must, in like manner, die ; 
or, if he do not, must submit to disgrace and degradation, 
often more difficult to be endured than death itself. This 
alternative has been happily described by a distinguished 
British officer. " When any person," says Captain William- 
son, " has been taken to the side of the Ganges, or other sub- 
stituted waters, under the supposition that he is dying, he 
is, in the eye of the Hindu law, dead ; his property passes to 
his next heir, according to his bequest ; and, in the event of 
recovery — which, from a sudden rallying of the vital powers 
or other causes, sometimes happens, especially in cases of ra- 
pid and great prostration of strength, the poor fellow be- 
comes an outcast. Even his own children will not eat with 
him, nor afford him the least accommodation ; if, by chance, 
they come in contact, ablution must follow. The wretched 
survivor from that time is held in abhorrence, and has no 
other resort but to associate himself with persons in similar 
circumstances. 1 '' " I have," writes another British officer, 
" taken a Gentoo out of the Ganges. I perceived him at 
night, and called out to the boatmen. ' Sir, he is gone ; he 
belongs to God.' Yes, but take him up, and God will get 
him hereafter. They got him up at the last gasp. I gave 
him some alcohol, and called it medicine. 4 Oh, Sir, my 
caste is gone ! ' — No, it is medicine. — 4 It is not that, Sir, 
but my family will not receive me. I am an outcast !' 
What ! for saving your life ? ' Yes.' Never mind such a 



214 



family." And, as a matter of fact, it may be added, that 
about fifty miles to the north of Calcutta, (near Suksagor,) 
there are two villages entirely inhabited by those degraded 
fugitives, who have become outcasts in consequence of sur- 
viving the inhuman rites attendant on dying in the Ganges. 
There they intermarry and employ themselves like any other 
low-caste natives. What a revolution would the inculcation 
and observance of the single precept of Christianity, — " Do 

unto others as ye would that they should do unto you,"" 

effect among the millions of British India ! 

Besides these exposures and immersions of the sick and 
the dying, there are at all times exhibited acts of voluntary 
self-devotement to the Ganges. These acts may be cele- 
brated in any part of the river, and on any day in the year. 
But there are certain auspicious days on which the per- 
formance of them will be attended with greater merit ; as 
well as certain sacred spots, such as Sagor Island, Benares, 
Allahabad, and other places of pilgrimage, where the rever- 
sionary advantages are pre-eminently great. 

When an individual is distressed from the pressure of 
poverty, or has sunk into degradation and contempt, or is 
afflicted by some malady, supposed to be incurable, it is no 
uncommon thing for him to vow to part with life in the 
sacred stream. By such an act of self-murder,— an act 
which is held to be of the greatest religious merit,— the poor 
man expects riches ; and the despised, freedom from re- 
proach ; and the distressed, exemption from sorrow ; and 
the diseased, deliverance from distemper, in the next birth. 
Whereas, without such self-devotement, one and all of 
these might die with no prospect of melioration in the next 
migration. 

But, apart from those necessitous circumstances that 
might naturally tempt many purposely to part with life, some 
of the Shastras countenance and encourage in others, who 
have not the same temptation, the practice of religious suicide 
in the Ganges ; — pronouncing it, however, unnecessary in a 
Brahman, but highly meritorious in a Shudra. In such cases, 
the reward promised is a temporary residence in the heaven 



215 



of one of the gods. The person, who has resolved voluntarily 
to renounce his life, is directed, in the sacred books " first 
to offer an atonement for all his sins, by making a present of 
gold to the Brahmans, and honouring them with a feast. 
Afterwards, putting on red apparel, and adorning himself 
with garlands of flowers, he is accompanied to the river by 
a band of music. Then, sitting down by the side of the river, 
he repeats the name of his idol ; and proclaims that he is 
" now about to renounce his life in this place, in order to ob- 
tain such or such a benefit in the next world." If the phi- 
lanthropist should interfere, offering even to recompense him 
for desisting from the act of self-destruction, the deluded man 
may probably reply, " that he wants nothing, as he is going 
to heaven 1 91 

All the preliminary rites being now concluded, the devotee, 
— accompanied by one or more Brahmans, to officiate on the 
occasion, and utter the incantations, — proceeds in a boat 
into the middle of the stream, furnished with a supply of 
cord and water-pans. Then the pans are fastened to the 
neck and shoulders ; and, while they remain empty, they keep 
the victim afloat. These are gradually filled, sometimes by 
the friends in the boat, sometimes by the devotee himself, 
as he is carried buoyant along the current ;— but when once 
they are surcharged, they sink ; and down they drag the 
victim to the bottom, amid the incantations of ghostly con- 
fessors, the rejoicings of friends, and the shouts of applaud- 
ing multitudes on the shore. A few gurgling bubbles rise 
on the surface, and speedily disappear ; — all the monument 
that is ever raised to perpetuate the remembrance of the vic- 
tim of superstition. Ah ! how different the scenes in a Chris- 
tian land ! Think of the pastor's visit to yonder cottage of 
the poor ; think of the tender sympathy that opens an inlet 
into the inmost soul ; think of the consolation that pours a 
balm into every wound ; think of the solemn prayer that 
excites emotions and hopes that are antepasts of bliss ; think 
of the serenity that overspreads the pale countenance of the 
dying man ; — and contrast all this with the scene now de- 
scribed, as of frequent occurrence on the bosom of the 



216 



Ganges, and say, whether ye have ever felt sufficiently thank- 
ful for the privilege of free citizenship, and pastoral superin- 
tendence, in a Christian land ! 

From all that has now been stated, no one can fail to have 
drawn some inference as to the low estimate of human life 
in India ; — and low it verily is ; being in general reckoned of 
little more intrinsic value than that of any one of the brutal 
tribes. The doctrines of transmigration and fatalism, with 
their inseparable concomitants, naturally and necessarily lead 
to this result. It is Christianity alone, which, by unfolding 
the true origin, nature, and destiny of the soul, has confer- 
red all its real worth and dignity on the life that now is, as 
well as on that which is to come ; — so that, in a country like 
India, the glorious declaration, that " the Gospel hath 
brought life and immortality clearly to light," may be seen 
to admit of a new and important though subordinate sense 
and application. 

Some may, indeed, suppose, that the Government of the 
land ought to interfere, and preserve its own subjects from 
self-destruction. On inquiry, it will be found that the Go- 
vernment have sometimes, and in some places, attempted to 
prevent one or more of these cruel practices ; but, as Bishop 
Heber well testifies, " with no other effect than driving the 
voluntary victims a little farther down the river ; nor, indeed, 
when a man comes several hundred miles to die, is it likely 
that a police officer can prevent him. " 

Should you, early in the morning, when about to leave the 
Ganges, approach the metropolis of British India, you can- 
not fail to be struck by the immense multitudes, of all sects 
and of all castes, that resort to the banks of the sacred 
stream, to perform their ablutions and devotions. 

Amongst these the worshippers of Shiva, the third person 
in the Hindu triad, appear conspicuous. All their actions 
you may observe ; all their devotional utterances you may 
listen to. To a mere stranger, however, all must be unin- 
telligible pantomime. Were the actions and sounds dis- 



217 



tinctly understood, the following would be found an average 
representation of both. After ascending from the waters of 
the river, they distribute themselves along the muddy banks. 
Each then takes up a portion of clay, and, beginning to 
mould it into the form of the Lingam, the symbol of his 
tutelary deity, devoutly says, " Eeverence to Hara, (a name 
of Shiva,) I take this lump of clay." Next addressing the 
clay he says, " Shiva, I make thy image. Praise to Sal- 
pani, (Shiva, the holder of the trisula, or trident.) god, 
enter into this image ; take life within it. Constant rever- 
ence to Mahesa, (Shiva,) whose form is radiant as a moun- 
tain of silver, lovely as the crescent of the moon, and resplen- 
dent with jewels ; having four hands, two bearing weapons, 
(the mace and the trident,) a third conferring blessings, and 
the fourth dispelling fear : serene, lotus-seated, worshipped 
by surrounding deities, and seated on a tigers skin. Re- 
verence to the holder of the pinaca, (a part of the Lin- 
gam.) Come, O come ! vouchsafe thy presence, vouchsafe 
thy presence : approach, rest, and tarry here." The Lingam, 
or symbol of Shiva, being now formed, he presents to it 
water from the Ganges, and various offerings, saying, " Lave 
thy body in the Ganges, O lord of animals. I offer thee 
water to wash thy feet. Praise to Shiva. Take water to 
wash thy hands ; smell this sandal-wood ; take these flowers 
and leaves ; accept this incense, and this flame ; consume 
this offering of mine, (consisting of plantains, cucumbers, 
oranges, plums, and other fruits ;) take one more draught of 
this stream ; raise thy mouth, and now take betel-nut," 
(with various other roots and vegetables.) He then wor- 
ships, rehearsing the names and attributes of the god ; and 
offers flowers all round the image, commencing from the 
east, — adding, " Receive, O Shiva, these offerings of flowers. 
I also present these fragrant flowers to thy consort, Durga. 
Thus do I worship thee." As an act of merit, he repeats, 
as often as he can, the names of Shiva ; counting the number 
of times on his fingers. Again and again he worships and 
bows, beating his cheeks, and uttering the mystical words, 
bom, bom. He last of all throws the flowers into the water, 



218 



prays to Shiva to grant him temporal favours and blessings ; 
twines his fingers one into the other ; places the image once 
more before him ; and then flings it away. 

Thus terminate the morning orisons of hundreds and 
thousands of fellow-subjects on the banks of the Ganges. 
Who can have listened to the supplication of a follower of 
Shiva, one of the purest and best specimens by far in the 
Hindu liturgy, without being forced to contrast it with the 
sublime and all-comprehending brevity of that truly divine 
form of prayer; commonly entitled " the Lord's Prayer V 
Who can have listened, without being forced to reflect, 
whether he ever knew before how much he is indebted to 
the Bible for a form of prayer, worthy of the Majesty of 
heaven, and suitable to the real wants of man ? 

After landing on that idolatrous shore, and mingling free- 
ly with the inhabitants, one is apt to be bewildered and lost, 
amid the endless multiplicity and variety of their rites, 
forms, and modes of worship. An account of the diversifi- 
ed observances daily and habitually practised by all the 
varying sects and castes, would fill many a ponderous folio. 
To attempt any such account, therefore, even if practicable, 
would be utterly preposterous. No one could be expected to 
have either the patience or the curiosity necessary for its 
perusal, who was not equally prepared to ply his way 
through the technicalities of fifty volumes of Acts of Parlia- 
ment. But the attempt would be, on other grounds, wholly 
unnecessary. Our object being, not to exhaust any depart- 
ment of Hinduism, but simply to select the leading points, 
and illustrate these by such details as may bring out dis- 
tinctly to the view of the uninstructed, the real genius and 
spirit of the system. For this purpose, a briefer course may 
be adopted and pursued. 

In India, the division of time into weeks has all along 
been observed. The nomenclature of the days is derived 
from the names of the sun, moon, and planets, exactly as in 
Europe. The remembrance, however, of the seventh as a 



219 



Sabbath, or sacred day of rest, has been completely lost. In- 
stead thereof, there have been substituted certain periodi- 
cal or anniversary days of high festival in honour of the 
principal divinities. These are so numerous, that it would 
be impossible within our limits to describe them all, as the 
description would be exceedingly voluminous. Every sect 
has its own favourite tutelary deity, in honour of whom 
stated periodical festivals are held. So that there is scarce- 
ly a day in the twelvemonth on which the anniversary of one 
or other of the gods is not celebrated by one or other of the 
leading sects, or sub-sects. It is quite enough for our pur- 
pose, to refer to one or two of those festivals which — from 
the superiority of the Deity adored, the prodigious multi- 
tudes that engage in the religious rites, and the universal 
suspension of business among all classes for several days — 
may strictly and truly be denominated national. In Bengal, 
in particular, the consort of Shiva, the destroying power, is 
the divinity that engrosses the largest proportion of daily, 
monthly, and annual devotion. Like the other principal 
deities, she has been manifested under an immense variety 
of forms. Of these a thousand are usually enumerated, under 
as many distinct appellations. Of the thousand forms, there 
are two that have risen to unrivalled pre-eminence above 
the rest. These are the forms of Durga and Kali. To 
these, therefore, our attention may be chiefly directed. 

In the form of Durga, the consort of Shiva has been said 
to blend in herself the characters of the Olympian Juno, 
and the Pallas or armed Minerva of the Greeks. She is, 
however, a far more tremendous personage than both of 
these combined. Having been endowed by all the gods se- 
verally with their distinctive attributes, she concentrates in 
herself their united power and divinity. She has thus be- 
come at once their champion and protectress.-— Hence, her 
towering pre-eminence above them all in popular estimation ; 
and hence, of all the annual festivals, that of Durga is most 
extensively celebrated in Eastern India. In this charac- 
ter, she is usually represented with ten arms, into which 
the principal gods delivered their respective weapons of 



220 



warfare. From one, she received the trident ; from a 
second, a quiver and arrows ; from a third, a battle axe ; 
from a fourth, an iron club ; from a fifth, spears and 
thunderbolts ;— and so, from other gods, various other war- 
like instruments ; together with the befitting ornaments of a 
golden crown, and robes magnificently adorned with jewels, 
and a necklace of pearls, and a wreathed circlet of snakes. 

Thus martially accoutred, the belligerent goddess is ever 
ready to encounter the mightiest giants, and most malig- 
nant demons that dare to invade the repose of the immor- 
tals. It was in consequence of destroying a giant, of such 
terrible potency as to have dispossessed the gods of their do- 
minion, that she gained the name of Durga. As the descrip- 
tion of this celebrated contest is a fair specimen of the manner 
in which the founders of Hinduism conceived and depicted 
those numberless battles of gods with which the sacred 
books abound, — and as the reiterated rehearsal of it, enters 
largely into all the meditations and prayers, the invocations 
and praise, the songs and the hymns of millions of adoring 
worshippers on days of high festival,— it may be well to in- 
troduce the original account of it, though in a somewhat 
abridged form, from the volumes of Ward. 

In remote ages, a giant named Durga,* having performed 
religious austerities of transcendent merit, in honour of 
Brahma, obtained his blessing, and became a great oppres- 
sor. He conquered the three worlds; dethroned all the 
gods, except the sacred Triad ; banished them from their 
respective heavens to live in forests ; and compelled them at 
his nod to come and bow down and worship before him, and 
celebrate his praise. He abolished all religious ceremonies. 
The Brahmans, through fear of him, forsook the reading of 
the Vedas. The rivers changed their courses. Fire lost its 
energy. The terrified stars retired from his sight. He as- 
sumed the forms of the clouds, and gave rain whenever he 
pleased ; the earth, through fear, gave an abundant increase ; 
and the trees yielded flowers and fruits out of season. The 
gods at length applied to Shiva. One said, he has dethroned 

* Durga— the a short, feminine ; Durga— the a long, masculine. 



221 



me ; another, he has taken my kingdom, — and thus all the 
gods related their misfortunes. Shiva, pitying their case, de- 
sired his wife, Parvati, to go and destroy the giant. She 
willingly accepted the commission. Durga prepared to meet 
her with an army of thirty thousand giants, who were such 
monsters in size, that they covered the surface of the earth, — 
ten millions of swift-footed horses, — a hundred millions of 
chariots, — a hundred and twenty thousand millions of ele- 
phants, — and soldiers beyond the power of arithmetic to num- 
ber. Parvati, having assumed a thousand arms, sat down 
upon a mountain, coolly awaiting the approach of her for- 
midable foes. The troops of the giant poured their ar- 
rows at her, thick as the drops of rain in a storm; they 
even tore up the trees and the mountains, and hurled 
them at the goddess : — she turned them all away ; and 
caused millions of strange beings to issue from her body 
which devoured all her enemies except their great leader. 
He then hurled a flaming dart at the goddess ; she easily 
turned it aside. He discharged another ; this she resisted 
by a hundred arrows. He levelled at her a club and pike ; 
these too she repelled. He broke off the peak of a moun- 
tain and threw it at her ; she cut it into seven pieces by her 
spear. He now assumed the shape of an elephant, as large 
as a mountain, and approached the goddess ; but she tied 
his legs, and with her nails, which were like scimitars, tore 
him to pieces. He then arose in the form of a buffalo, and 
with his horns cast stones and mountains at the goddess 
— tearing up the trees by the breath of his nostrils ; she 
pierced him with a trident, when he reeled to and fro. Re- 
nouncing the form of a buffalo, he reassumed his original 
body as a giant, with a thousand arms, and weapons in 
each ; she seized him by his thousand arms and carried him 
into the air, from whence she threw him down with a dread- 
ful force. Perceiving, however, that this had no effect, she 
pierced him in the breast with an arrow ; when the blood 
issued in streams from his mouth and he expired. The gods, 
filled with joy, immediately reascended their thrones, and 
were reinstated in their former splendour. The Brahmans 



222 



recommenced the study of the Vedas. Sacrifices were again 
regularly performed. Every thing reassumed its pristine 
state. The heavens rang with the praises of Parvati. And 
the gods, in return for so signal a deliverance, immortalized 
the victory by transferring to the heroine the name of 
Durga. 

Suppose, then, you were in Calcutta in the month of Sep- 
tember, you might every where witness the most splendid 
and extensive preparations for the annual festival of Durga. 
In going along the streets of the native city, your eye might 
be chiefly arrested by the profusion of images unceremo- 
niously exposed to sale like the commonest commodity. On 
inquiry, you are told that wealthy natives have images of the 
goddess in their houses made of gold, silver, brass, copper, 
crystal, stone, or mixed metal, which are daily worshipped. 
These are stable and permanent heir-looms in a family ; and 
are transmitted from sire to son like any other of the goods 
and chattels that become hereditary property. But besides 
these, you are next informed, that for the ceremonial pur- 
pose of a great festival, multitudes of temporary images are 
prepared. The reason why we call these temporary will ap- 
pear by and by. These may be made of a composition of 
hay, sticks, clay, wood, or other cheap and light materials. 
They may be made of any size, from a few inches to ten, 
twelve, or twenty feet in height. But the ordinary size is 
that of the human stature. The only limitation is that of 
the form. This is prescribed by divine authority ; and from 
it there must be no departure. Hence all are framed or 
fashioned after the same divine model. This, we may remark 
in passing, is one of the principal reasons why in India the 
arts of painting and statuary have for ages been stationary. 
These images may be made by the worshipping parties them- 
selves, — and made so small, and of substances so little ex- 
pensive, that the poorest may be provided with one as well as 
the richest. But if the parties do not choose to make the 
images themselves, they can be at no loss. There is an 
abundance of image-makers by profession. And, alas, in a 
city like Calcutta, the craft of image-making is by far the 



223 



most lucrative and unfluctuating of all crafts. If there be 
thousands and tens of thousands of families that are to 
engage in the celebration of the festival, there must be thou- 
sands and tens of thousands of images prepared for it. 

This explains to you the origin of the spectacle presented 
to your eyes in passing along the streets of Calcutta. Be- 
fore, behind ; on the right, and on the left ; — here and there, 
and everywhere, you seem encompassed with a forest of images 
of different sizes, and piles of limbs and bodies and frag- 
ments of images of divers materials, finished and unfinished, 
— in all the intermediate stages of progressive fabrication. 
But not only is the sense of vision affected ; the ears too, 
are assailed by the noise of implements busily wielded by 
the workmen. You step aside, and standing at the door of 
an image-maker's work shop, you gaze with wonder at the 
novel process. You recall to remembrance some striking 
passages in Isaiah and other prophets, descriptive of the very 
spectacle then exhibited to your own eyes : — how the car- 
penter " heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress 
and the oak from among the trees of the forest ; — how he 
burneth part thereof in the fire, and warmeth himself, and 
saith, Aha, I am warm, and have seen the fire ; and the re- 
sidue thereof he maketh his god, even his graven image ; — 
how he stretcheth out his rule, and marketh it out with 
a line, and with the compass, and fitteth it with planes, and 
fashioneth it with hammers ; — and how he then falleth 
down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and 
saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god." All this, and much 
more, in a similar strain, may now present itself with pecu- 
liar vividness to your mind. And you may- remember, too, 
how you once thought that such passages of sacred writ had 
now become altogether antiquated. In your native land, 
you never had seen a graven image, nor a heathen temple. 
There all false gods, in the gross and literal sense of these 
terms, had utterly perished from off the earth, and from 
under the heavens. And it had been so long delivered 
from the presence of idols, and idol worship, that the mere 
remembrance of them had become wholly obliterated in the 



^24 

minds of the great mass of the people ; and but faintly and 
casually revived in the memory of the traveller that has 
gazed at the wonderful Scandinavian relics, in the roofless 
stone temples of the North ; or at the still more wonderful 
Druidical remains, in the giant columns of the South. You 
remember, on the other hand, how, with the pliant tongue 
of infancy, you had been taught to lisp that there is but 
" one true, living God, the Almighty Maker of heaven and 
earth" — and how you were taught to believe that the God- 
head, in whom " we live, and move, and have our being," 
cannot possibly be " like unto gold, or silver, or stone, 
graven by art and man's device." And this knowledge had 
so commended itself to your expanding reason, and your 
mature reflection, that you could not well conceive how it 
was possible that beings in human form, and endowed with 
human understanding, should become so bereft of all sense 
as to fabricate gods of wood and stone, the work of their 
own hands — gods that " have mouths, but speak not ; eyes, 
but see not ; ears, but hear not ; noses, but smell not ; 
hands, but handle not ; feet, but walk not ; neither have 
any breath in their mouths." Such descriptions, you had 
supposed, must have special reference to times long gone by 
— to remote eras of ignorance and barbarism — which may 
figure in the pages of recondite history and hoary antiquari- 
anism but can- no longer be applicable to the present ad- 
vanced and refined age ; — this age, so boastful of the march 
of intelligence, and the earthly perfectability of man ; — this 
age, so vauntful of its transforming rationalism and wide- 
spreading illumination ! Ah ! what a shock to such Utopian 
reveries must be given by the spectacle now presented to your 
eyes, in the very heart of the metropolis of the mightiest pro- 
vince of the British empire ! As you gaze at the busy opera- 
tions of scores of image-makers, and hear all around the 
sounding tokens of the presence of hundreds more, how you 
must be forced to feel that the language of the prophets, and 
of the Psalmist, is not yet obsolete ! How you must be amazed 
to find, that up to this year and month and day of the Chris- 
tian era, there exists a cotemporaneous state of heathenism 



225 



and heathen image-making — and that, too, on a scale of incon * 
ceivable magnitude — precisely similar to what existed in the 
time of the prophets, three thousand years ago ! — yea more, 
that so exact is the parallelism, that were you to range through 
the vocabulary of all languages for terms to pourtray what 
your own eyes behold, you could not find words or figures 
more aptly representative than the graphic, the almost pic- 
torial, portraiture of the inspired seers of the house of Israel. 

As you gaze at the image-makers, your thoughts pass to 
and fro. The recollections of the past strangely blend with 
the visible exhibitions of the present. The old settled con- 
victions of home-experience are suddenly counterpoised by 
the previously unimagined scene that has opened to the view. 
Your conclusions seem for a moment to vibrate in the bal- 
ance of a quivering judgment. To incline it one way or 
other, and thus determine the " dubious propendency," you 
again and again watch the movements of those before you. 
You contemplate their forms, and you cannot doubt that 
they are men. You narrowly mark their countenances; and 
you cannot but observe the sparks of intelligence beaming 
therefrom. Your wonder is vastly increased ; but the 
grounds of your decision have multiplied too. And where 
can you find more appropriate terms for its annunciation, 
than in the bold language of the evangelical prophet: — 
" They have not known nor understood; for He hath shut 
their eyes that they cannot see ; and their hearts that they 
cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, 
neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have 
burned part of it in the fire ; and shall I make the residue 
thereof an abomination I Shall I fall down to the stock of 
a tree \ He feedeth on ashes ; a deceived heart hath turned 
him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul ; nor say, is there 
not a lie in my right hand ? " 

After the abatement of the first surprise, you are impelled 
to address the men : — What, you exclaim, do you really be- 
lieve that, with your own hands, you can, out of wood and 
straw and clay, fabricate a god ; before which you may fall 
down and worship ? No ; will be the prompt reply, we be- 

P 



226 



lieve no such thing. What then do you believe ? We be- 
lieve, respond they, that we mould and fashion only the 
representative image or graven likeness of the deity. How, 
then, come you to Worship it ? Wait, may be the reply, till 
the first great day of the feast, and you will then see how 
it is rendered worthy of homage and adoration. 

As the great day approaches, symptoms of increasing pre- 
paration thicken and multiply all around. People are seen 
in every direction peaceably conveying the images to their 
houses. The materials for wonder- stirring exhibitions and 
ceremonial observances, are every where accumulating. 
Thousands of residents from a distance, are seen returning 
to their homes in the interior, laden with the earnings and 
the profits of months to lavish on the great occasion. At 
length the Government offices are by proclamation shut for 
a whole week ! Secular business of every description, public 
or private, is suspended by land and by water, in town and 
in country. All things seem to announce the approach of a 
grand holiday — a season of universal joy and festivity. 

Ye British merchants ! — who are so often deaf to every call 
that does not reach you, as it rebounds from the temple of 
Mammon, — would that ye could understand how the continu- 
ance of such a state of society vitally affects your pecuniary 
interests ! For many days in succession, no clearances at the 
custom-house for lading or unlading, — no tables open at the 
exchange or other public offices for the transaction and des- 
patch of necessary business, — no hiring of native agency, so 
indispensable for preparing or disposing of valuable cargoes. 
Your noble vessels lie motionless, lazily reflecting their 
shadows from the bosom of the mighty stream, — their pen- 
nons idly floating in the breeze. — Your men dispersed from 
want of regular employment, — madly roaming over city and 
country on wild crusades of intemperance and vice ; — con- 
tracting habits of future insubordination and misrule, or 

haplessly treasuring up the seeds of incurable maladies. 
Apart altogether from the tarnishing of the British charac- 
ter, and the ruin of immortal souls, who can estimate the 
thousands that are thus periodically lost and consumed by 



227 



the constant recurrence of the Durga Pujah, and other hea- 
then festivals ? If deaf to the call of your God and Savi- 
our : — if dead to the highest and noblest interests of hu- 
manity, would that ye were in this case aroused to attend to 
your own ! Would that ye were persuaded to throw those 
thousands, that are annually lost to you through the con- 
tinuance of heathenism, into the Christian treasury ; for the 
express purpose of expelling that very heathenism, the conti- 
nued reign of which constitutes your loss, — and then would 
these thousands be ultimately restored to you, or to your 
children in kind, a, hundred, yea a thousandfold. They 
would be restored to you with an ample revenue at once of 
glory and of profit ; — and in this instance, it would be de- 
monstrated how the most rapid advancement of your own 
temporal prosperity was coincident with the promotion of 
the eternal well-being of your fellow-men. 

But to return to the festival. It extends altogether over 
a period of fifteen days. The greater part of that time is 
occupied with the performance of preliminary ceremonies, 
previous to the three great days of worship. Early on the 
morning of the first of the three great days commences the 
grand rite of consecrating the images. Hitherto these have 
been regarded merely as combinations of lifeless, senseless 
matter. Now, however, by the power of the Brahmans — 
those vicegerents of deity on earth — they are to be endowed 
with life and intelligence. A wealthy family can always 
secure the services of one or more Brahmans, — and of the 
very poor, a few may always unite, and secure the good of- 
fices of one of the sacred fraternity. At length the solemn 
hour arrives. The officiating Brahman, provided with the 
leaves of a sacred tree, and other holy accoutrements, ap- 
proaches the image. With the two forefingers of his right 
hand he touches the breast, the two cheeks, the eyes, and 
the forehead of the image, at each successive touch giving 
audible utterance to the prayer, — " Let the spirit of Durga 
descend, and take possession of this image." And thus, by 
the performance of various ceremonies, and the enunciation 
of various mystical verses or incantations, called muntms* 



228 



the ghostly officiator is devoutly believed to possess the di- 
vine power of bringing down the goddess to take bodily pos- 
session of the image. The image is henceforward regarded 
as the peculiar local habitation of the divinity, and is be- 
lieved to be really and truly animated by her. In this way 
the relation of the visible image to the invisible deity is held 
to be precisely the same as the relation of the human body 
to the soul, or subtle spirit that actuates it. The con- 
stant and universal belief is, that when the Brahman re- 
peats the muntras, the deities must come, obedient to his 

call — agreeably to the favourite Sanskrit sloka, or verse : 

" The universe is under the power of the deities,^the deities 
are under the power of the muntras, — the muntras are under 
the power of the Brahmans ; consequently, the Brahmans 
are gods." This is the creed of the more enlightened ; 
but a vast proportion of the more ignorant and unreflecting 
believe something far more gross. It is their firm per- 
suasion, that by means of the ceremonies and incanta- 
tions, the mass of rude matter has been actually changed 
or transformed, or, if you will, transubstantiated, into the 
very substance of deity itself. According to either view 
of the subject, whether more or less rational, the image 
is believed to be truly animated by divinity, — to be a real, 
proper, and legitimate object of worship. Having eyes, 
it can now behold the various acts of homage rendered by 
adoring votaries ; having ears, it can be charmed by the 
symphonies of music and of song ; having nostrils, it can be 
regaled with the sweet- smelling savour of incense and per- 
fume ; having a mouth, it can be luxuriated with the grateful 
delicacies of the rich banquet that is spread out before it. 

Immediately after the consecration of the images, the 
worship commences ; and is continued with numberless rites 
nearly the whole day. But what description can convey 
an idea of the multifarious complexity of Indian worship \ 
—worship, too, simultaneously conducted in thousands of 
separate houses; — for on such occasions every house is con- 
verted into a temple ? To bring the subject within some 
reasonable compass, you must suppose yourself in the house 



of a wealthy native. Let it be one which is constructed, 
as usual, of a quadrangular form, — with a vacant area in 
the centre, open, or roofless towards the canopy of heaven. 
On one side is a spacious hall, opening along the ground 
floor by many folding doors to piazzas or verandahs on ei- 
ther side. These are crowded by the more common sort of 
visitors. Round the greater part of the interior is a range of 
galleries, with retiring chambers. Part of these is devoted 
to the reception of visitors of the higher ranks, whether 
European or native ; and part is closed for the accommoda- 
tion of the females of the family ; who, without being seen 
themselves, may, through the Venetians, view both visitors 
and worshippers, as well as the varied festivities. The walls, 
the columns, and fronts of the verandahs and galleries, are 
all fantastically decorated with a profusion of tinsel orna- 
ments of coloured silk and paper, and glittering shapes and 
forms of gold and silver tissue. To crown all, there is, in the 
genuine Oriental style, an extravagant display of lustres, — 
suspended from the ceiling, and projecting from the walls, 
— which, when kindled at night, radiate a flood of light 
enough to dazzle and confound ordinary vision. 

At the upper extremity of the hall is the ten armed image 
of the goddess, raised several feet on an ornamented pedes- 
tal. On either side of her are usually placed images of her 
two sons ; — Ganesha, the god of wisdom, with his elephant 
head ; and Kartikeya, the god of war, riding on a peacock. 
These are worshipped on this occasion, together with a multi- 
tude of demi-goddesses, the companions of Durga in her wars. 

In the evening, about eight o'clock, the principal pujah, or 
worship, is renewed with augmented zeal. But what con- 
stitutes pujah, or worship, in that land ? Watch the devotee, 
and you will soon discover. He enters the hall; he approaches 
the image ; and prostrates himself before it. After the 
usual ablutions, and other preparatory rites, he next twists 
himself into a variety of grotesque postures ; sometimes 
sitting on the floor, sometimes standing; sometimes look- 
ing in one direction and sometimes in another. Then fol- 
lows the ordinary routine of observances ; — sprinklings of 



230 



the idol with holy water ; rinsings of its mouth ; washings of 
its feet; wipings of it with a dry cloth; thro wings of flowers 
and green leaves over it ; adornings of it with gaudy orna- 
ments; exhalings of perfume ; alternate tinklings and plaster- 
ings of the sacred bell with the ashes of sandal wood ; mut- 
terings of invocation for temporal blessings ; and a winding 
up of the whole with the lowliest act of prostration, in which 
the worshipper stretches himself at full length, disposing his 
body in such a manner as at once to touch the ground with 
the eight principal parts of his body, viz., the feet, the thighs, 
the hands, the breast, the mouth, the nose, the eyes, and 
the forehead ! 

After numbers have thus performed their worship, there 
succeeds a round of carousals and festivity. The spectators 
are entertained with fruits and sweetmeats. Guests of dis- 
tinction have atar, or the essence of roses, and rich con- 
serves, abundantly administered. Musicians, with various 
hand and wind instruments, are introduced into the hall. 
Numbers of abandoned females, gaily attired, and glittering 
with jewels, are hired for the occasion to exhibit their 
wanton dances, and rehearse their indecent songs in praise 
of the idol amid the plaudits of surrounding worshippers. 

Another essential part of the worship consists in the pre- 
sentation of different kinds of offerings to the idol. These 
offerings, after being presented with due form and ceremony, 
are eventually distributed among the attendant priests. 
No share of them is expected to be returned to the wor- 
shipper ; so that, on his part, it is a real sacrifice. What- 
ever articles are once offered, become consecrated ; and are 
supposed to have some new and valuable qualities there- 
by imparted to them. Hence the more ignorant natives 
often come craving for a small portion of the sacred food, 
to be carried home to cure diseases. 

But it is to the almost incredible profusion of the offer- 
ings presented at such festivals that we would desire to call 
your special attention. In general, it may be said, that the 
bulk of the people, rich and poor, expend by far the larger 
moiety of t heir earnings or income on offerings to idols, and the 



231 



countless rites and exhibitions connected with idol worship. 
At the celebration of one festival, a wealthy native has been 
known to offer after this manner : — eighty thousand pounds 
weight of sweetmeats ; eighty thousand pounds weight of 
sugar; a thousand suits of cloth garments; a thousand suits of 
silk; a thousand offerings of rice, plantains, and other fruits. 
On another occasion, a wealthy native has been known to 
have expended upwards of thirty thousand pounds sterling on 
the offerings, the observances, and the exhibition of a single 
festival ; and upwards of ten thousand pounds annually, ever 
afterwards to the termination of his life. Indeed, such is 
the blindfold zeal of these benighted people, that instances 
are not unfrequent of natives of rank and wealth reducing 
themselves and families to poverty by their lavish expendi- 
ture in the service of the gods ; and in upholding the pomp 
and dignity of their worship. In the city of Calcutta alone, at 
the lowest and most moderate estimate, it has been calculat- 
ed that half a million, at least, is annually expended on the 
celebration of the Durga Pujah festival. How vast — how 
inconceivably vast, then, must be the aggregate expended 
by rich and poor on all the daily, weekly, monthly, and an- 
nual rites, ceremonies, and festivals, held in honour of a 
countless pantheon of divinities ! 

Ah ! it is when gazing at these heaps of offering so la- 
vishly poured into the treasury of the false gods of hea- 
thenism, that one is constrained to reflect, in bitterness of 
spirit, on the miserable contrast presented by the scanty, 
stinted, and shrivelled offerings of the professed worship- 
pers of the true God in a Christian land ! Would that 
in this respect the disciples of Christ could be induced 
to learn a lesson from the blinded votaries of Hinduism ! 
Take the case of a renowned city, — the third, in point of 
wealth and commercial importance in the British empire; — 
a city on whose escutcheon and banner is inscribed the noble 
motto, that it is to " flourish by the righteousness of the 
word." What has been, on the part of its citizens, the mani- 
festation of a liberality, that must needs astound all Chris- 
tendom ; — and, if it were possible, cause the very universe 



232 



to resound with the never-dying echoes of its fame \ Why \ 
— this great city, whose merchants are princes, and the ho- 
nourable of the earth ; — this mighty city, that sits as a queen 
among the principalities of the nations ; — this celebrated city 
did, on a late occasion, in very truth, contribute the sum of 
twenty thousand pounds to promote, within itself, the cause of 
that Redeemer, to whose vicarious sacrifice and mediatorial 
government it owes existence, and riches, and salvation, — 
all the possessions and comforts of time, — all the prospects 
and crowns of immortality ! Well, be it so ! We at once 
cheerfully concede that, compared with the doings of others in 
this professedly Christian land, this is one of the best and 
noblest specimens of modern benevolence. But turn now to 
benighted Hindustan. Look to one of its chief commercial 
emporia. There, on a single festival, in honour of a mon- 
strous image of wood or clay, you find upwards of five hun- 
dred thousand pounds expended — not once, but annually ! 
After this, talk if ye will, of your liberalities. Boast of 
them. Eulogize them to the skies. Parade them as muni- 
ficent in public journals. Extol them beyond measure at 
your great anniversaries. Would that, when next disposed 
to trumpet forth the praise of your own doings, ye would go 
and proclaim your magnificent contributions to the cause of 
your God and Saviour in the presence of the deluded hea- 
then, who replenish with free-will offerings the halls of their 
idol Durga. Ah, methinks, that instead of deigning to re- 
ply, they might point, in scornful silence, to the multiplied 
tokens and pledges of their own prodigal bounty .'—and 
leave you to draw an inference which might well cover you 
with confusion and dismay ! For, what could the inference 
be, were the silence and symbolic movement rightly inter- 
preted and embodied in words? What could it be but 
this ?— " If the amount of free-will offerings be a measure of 
sincerity in our religious profession; surely our sincerity 
must be a hundredfold deeper than yours. If extent of sa- 
crifice of worldly substance, to which we all so naturally 
cling, be a measure of our love to the object of worship ; 
surely our love to our god, which you reckon a poor dumb 



233 



idol, must be a hundredfold more intense than yours to- 
wards Him whom you profess to regard as the only true God 
and Saviour. If visible fruits be the test of reality of faith ; 
surely our faith in the truth of our religion must be a hun- 
dredfold stronger than your faith in the truth of yours. In- 
deed you seem to have scarcely any faith at all. And the 
little you do, has the appearance of being designed to save 
you from the charge of open infidelity, rather than to indi- 
cate a heartfelt interest in promoting the cause and honour 
of your God." If a rebuke so cutting, from a quarter so un- 
expected, do not lead to amendment and increase in your 
Christian liberalities ; rest assured, that these poor blinded 
idolaters, whom you affect to view with pity and compas- 
sion, will one day rise up in judgment and condemn you. 

The subject of offerings is not yet exhausted. At the 
annual festival of Durga, there are also hloody sacrifices pre- 
sented. The number of these, though in general little 
thought of or little known, is very remarkable. When in- 
fidel scoffers have read in the Bible of the multitude of sa- 
crifices constantly offered ; — more especially when they read 
of King Solomon on one memorable occasion sacrificing 
twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand sheep, — they have not scrupled to denounce the narra- 
tive as wholly beyond the pale of historic credibility, — as par- 
taking so much of the fabulous and the marvellous as se- 
riously to damage the authenticity of the entire record that 
contains it. Ignorant men ! ignorant of the manners and 
customs of Oriental nations : — and, ever true to the charac- 
ter of your race, presumptuous in proportion to your igno- 
rance. Were ye transported to the shores of Hindustan 
now, ye would find up to this day multitudes of sacrifices 
constantly offered at temples and in private houses ; in single 
cases almost rivalling, and collectively and nationally vastly 
out-rivalling in number the thousands and tens of thousands 
once offered by the Hebrew monarch, — at a time when the 
Sovereign reckoned it no impiety to allocate the resources of 
a State to the rearing of altars and temples to Jehovah, 
Lord of Hosts ; — nor, as the most exalted member of the 



234 



visible Church, felt it any dishonour for a season to drop the 
functions of royalty, and assuming part of the office of high 
priest, solemnly engage in conducting the devotional exer- 
cises of a national worship. And if the overwhelming evi- 
dence addressed to your understandings had failed to convince 
you of the veracity of the inspired penmen, must not the 
testimony of sense as to the vast numbers of Hindu sacri- 
fices, extort from you a confession in favour of the antece- 
dent credibility of the J ewish record in the narration of num- 
bers not more than parallel in magnitude '? 

At a single temple in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, the 
ordinary number of daily sacrifices averages between fifty 
and a hundred he-goats and rams, besides a proportion of 
buffaloes. On Saturdays and Mondays, which happen to be 
days particularly sacred to the divinity worshipped there, 
the number of sacrifices is doubled or trebled: — while on 
great festival occasions, the number is increased from hun- 
dreds to thousands. At the annual festival of Durga, there 
are hundreds of families in the Calcutta district alone, 
that sacrifice severally scores of animals ; many present 
their hecatombs ; and some occasionally their thousands. 
It is within the present half century, that the Rajah of 
Nudiya in the north of Bengal, offered a large number 
of sheep, and goats, and buffaloes on the first day of 
the feast ; and vowed to double the offering on each suc- 
ceeding day. So that the number sacrificed in all amounted, 
in the aggregate, to wpwards of sixty-jive thousand ! Mr 
Ward states, that the Rajah " loaded boats with the bodies, 
and sent them to the neighbouring Brahmans, but they 
could not devour or dispose of them fast enough, and 
great numbers were thrown away." 

Returning to the scene in the house of a wealthy native 
on the first great day of the festival : — After the worship, 
and the offerings, and the dancings in honour of the goddess 
have been concluded, the votaries proceed after midnight to 
the presentation of animals in sacrifice. It is in the central 
roofless court or area of the house that the process of slaughter 
is usually carried on. There a strong upright post is fastened 



235 



in the ground, excavated at the top somewhat like a double 
pronged fork. In this excavation the neck of the victim is 
inserted, and made fast by a transverse pin above. Close 
at hand stands the hired executioner, usually a blacksmith, 
with his broad heavy axe. And woe be to him if he fail in 
severing the head at one stroke ! Such failure would betide 
ruin and disgrace to himself, and entail the most frightful 
disaster on his employer and family. 

Each animal is duly consecrated by the officiating Brah- 
man, who marks its horns and forehead with red lead, — 
sprinkles it, for the sake of purifying, with Ganges water, — 
adorns its neck with a necklace of leaves, and its brow with 
a garland of flowers, — and reads various incantations in its 
ears, adding, " Durga, I sacrifice this animal to thee, that 
I may dwell in thy heaven for so many years." With simi- 
lar ceremonies, each sacrificial victim, whether goat, sheep, 
or buffaloe, is dedicated and slain amid the din and hubbub 
of human voices. The heads and part of the blood are then 
carried in succession to the hall within, and ranged before 
the image, — each head being there surmounted with a lighted 
lamp. Over them the officiating Brahman repeats certain 
prayers, — utters appropriate incantations, — and formally 
presents them as an acceptable feast to the goddess. Other 
meat-offerings and drink-offerings are also presented with 
a repetition of the proper formulas. And last of all, on a 
small square altar made of clean dry sand, burnt-offerings 
of flowers, or grass, or leaves, or rice, or clarified butter, 
are deposited — with prayers, that all remaining sins may 
be destroyed by the sacrificial fire. This naturally leads us 
to answer a question that is often asked, namely, What 
becomes of the flesh meat of so many animals ? Part of 
it is offered on the altar as a burnt sacrifice. But the 
larger part of it always, and not unfrequently the whole, is 
devoured as food. The Brahmans of course have their 
choice. And the remainder is distributed in large quanti- 
ties among the inferior castes. As it has been consecrated 
by being offered to the goddess, it is lawful for all who choose 
to partake of it. 



236 



It is impossible to note all the variations in the different 
modes in which the Durga Pujah is celebrated by the different 
castes and sects. Some individuals expend the largest pro- 
portion in peace-offerings, and meat, and drink-offerings ; 
others in bloody sacrifices, and burnt-offerings : some in 
the dances, and the tinsel garnishings, and fire-work ex- 
hibitions ; and others in entertaining and giving presents to 
Brahmans. The disciples of the numerous sect of Vishnu, 
though they celebrate the festival with great pomp, present 
no bloody offerings to Durga ; instead of slaughtering ani- 
mals, — pumpkins, or some other substitute, are split in two 
and presented to the goddess. 

The multitudinous rites and ceremonies of the first day 
and night of the festival being now nearly concluded, num- 
bers of old and young, rich and poor, male and female, rush 
into the open area that is streaming with the blood of ani- 
mals slain in sacrifice. They seize a portion of the gory 
dust and mud ; and with the sacred compost liberally bedaub 
their bodies; — dancing and prancing all the while with almost 
savage ferocity. With their bodies thus bespattered, and 
their minds excited into phrenzy, multitudes now pour into 
the streets ; — some with blazing torches ; others with musical 
instruments ; — and all, twisting their frames into the most 
wanton attitudes and vociferating the most indecent 
songs, rush to and fro, reeling shouting and raving, more 
wildly than the troops of " iron-speared" and " ivy-leaved" 
Amazons that were wont, in times of old, to cause the woods 
and the mountains of Greece to resound with the frantic 
orgies of Bacchus. 

For two days and two nights more, there is a renewal of 
the same round of worship, and rites, and ceremonies, and 
dances, and sacrifices, and Bacchanalian fury. 

As the morning of the first day was devoted to the conse- 
cration of the images, so the morning of the fourth is occu- 
pied with the grand ceremony of unconsecrating them. He, 
who had the divine power of bringing down the goddess to 
inhabit each tabernacle of wood or clay, has also the power 
of dispossessing it of her animating presence. Accordingly, 



237 



the officiating Brahman, surrounded by the members of the 
family, engages, amid various rites and sprinklings and in- 
cantations, to send the divinity back to her native heaven ; 
— concluding with a farewell address, in which he tells the 
goddess, that he expects her to accept of all his services, 
and to return again to renew her favours on the following 
year. All now unite in muttering a sorrowful adieu to the 
divinity, and many seem affected even to the shedding of 
tears ! 

Soon afterwards a crowd assembles, exhibiting habiliments 
bespotted with divers hues and colours. The image is car- 
ried forth to the street. It is planted on a portable stage 
or platform, and then raised on men's shoulders. As the 
temporary local abode of the departed goddess, it is still 
treated with profound honour and respect. As the proces- 
sion advances along the street, accompanied with music and 
songs, amid clouds of heated dust, you see human beings, — 
yes, full grown beings, wearing all the outward prerogatives 
of the human form, marching on either side, and waving 
their chouries or long hairy brushes, to wipe away the dust, 
and ward off the musquitoes or flies that might otherwise 
desecrate or annoy the senseless image. But whither does 
the procession tend ? To the banks of the Granges — most 
sacred of streams. For what purpose ? Follow it and you 
will see. As you approach the river, you every where be- 
hold numbers of similar processions, from town and country, 
before and behind, on the right and on the left. You cast 
your eyes along the banks. As far as vision can reach, they 
seem literally covered. It is one living moving mass — dense, 
vast, interminable. The immediate margin being too con- 
fined for the contact of such a teeming throng, hundreds 
and thousands of boats, of every size and every form, are 
put in requisition. A processional party steps on board, 
and each vessel is speedily launched on the broad expanse of 
the waters. The bosom of the stream seems, for miles, to 
be converted into the crowd, and the movement, and the har- 
lequin exhibitions of an immense floating fair. When the 
last rites and ceremonies are terminated, all the companies 



238 



of image carriers suddenly fall upon their images ; they 
break them to pieces, and violently dash the shivered frag- 
ments into the depths of the passing stream. But who can 
depict the wondrous spectacle ? — The numbers without 
number ; — the fantastic equipages of every rank and 
grade ; — the variegated costumes of every caste and sect ; — 
the strangely indecorous bodily gestures of deluded wor- 
shippers ; — the wild and phrenzied mental excitement of my- 
riads of spectators intoxicated with the scene ; — the break- 
ing, crashing, and sinking of hundreds of dispossessed 
images, along the margin and over the surface of the mighty 
stream ; amid the loud shrill dissonance of a thousand un- 
tuneful instruments; commingled with the still more stun- 
ning peals of ten thousand thousand human voices ! Here 
language entirely fails. Imagination itself must sink down 
with wings collapsed ; utterly baffled in the effort to conceive 
the individualities and the groupings of an assemblage com- 
posed of such varied magnitudes. 

Towards evening the multitudes return to their homes. 
Return, you will ask, for the purpose of refreshment and 
repose ? No : but to engage in fresh scenes of boisterous 
mirth and sensual revelry. But when these are at length 
brought to a close, is there not a season of respite ? No : 
all hearts, all thoughts, are instantaneously turned towards 
the next incoming festival, in honour of some other divinity. 
And the necessary preparations are at once set on foot to 
provide for its due celebration. And thus it has been for 
ages past ; and thus it may be for ages to come ; — unless the 
Christian people of these lands awake from the sleep of an 
ungodly, carnal security ; arise from the deep slumber of 
sottish, selfish, luxurious enjoyment ; and come forward, far 
beyond the standard of any present example, to implement 
their covenant engagement to advance the Redeemer's cause. 
Oh, ye who do well to dwell at ease in your ceiled houses, when 
every where the temple of the Lord lies waste ! — ye who do 
well to eat, and drink, and be merry, when the multitudes 
of the nations are up in arms against your Sovereign Lord 
and Redeemer, — up in arms against the true peace and 



239 



everlasting happiness of their own souls, — those precious 
souls that will never die ! — ye may wholly resist every appeal 
that is thus addressed to you at a distance, in words : — 
but, frozen-hearted as many of you are, could ye, we would 
ask, wholly resist the thrilling appeal which the direct ex- 
hibition of the terrible reality would address to you ? 

When we have stood on the banks of the Ganges, sur- 
rounded by deluded multitudes engaged in ablutions, in or- 
der to cancel the guilt and wipe away the stains of trans- 
gressions ; — here, assailed by the groans of the sick and the 
dying, stretched on the wet banks beneath " a hot and cop- 
per sky ; " and there, stunned by loud vociferations in the 
name of worship, addressed to innumerable gods ; — on the 
one hand, the flames of many a funeral pile blazing in view ; 
and on the other, the loathsome spectacle of human carcas- 
ses floating unheeded and unknown, amid the dash of the 
oar, and the merry songs of the boatmen : — and when we felt 
our own solitude in the midst of the teeming throng, — a cold 
sensation of horror has crept through the soul ; and the 
heart has well-nigh sunk and failed, through the overbear- 
ing impressions of sense, and the desponding weakness of 
faith. Gracious God ! have we exclaimed, how marvellous 
is the extent of thy long-suffering and forbearance ! What 
earthly monarch could, for a single hour, endure the thou- 
sand thousandth part of the indignities that are here daily 
offered to thy throne and Majesty, thou King of kings ! 
And yet, thus it has been for ages ! Lord, how long will it 
continue to be ! — For ever ? No ; no ! When we look at the 
apparently unchanged past, and survey the apparently un- 
changeable present, the review and contemplation seem to 
sound the death-knell of hope, that would cradle us in black 
despair. But when we glance at the future, as pourtrayed 
in the " sure word of prophecy, 1 ' we there learn to realize 
the mystery of " hoping against hope." From these pol- 
luted waters of a turbid earthly stream, we turn the eye 
of faith to the waters of Gospel grace, which are seen, in the 
prophetic vision, to issue from under the threshold of the 
temple of Zion eastward. They swell and deepen into a 



240 



river. It is the river of life. Wherever it rolls, disease 
barrenness and death disappear. Within it every thing 
moves and is healed. Its banks also are shaded with trees, 
— they are trees of life, whose leaf shall not fade, neither 
shall the fruit thereof ever be consumed. Eoll on, thou 
life-giving river ! In Judah's land, on Calvary's mount, 
where the great Redeemer suffered, bled, and died, was thy 
fountain first opened. Roll on, thou life-giving river ! Long 
hast thou been in reaching this dreary moral waste. But 
the time appointed, even the set time, is come. Now, roll 
on and overflow the sterile wilderness with thy refreshing 
waters. Let life and health, verdure and beauty spring forth 
from thy gladdening presence — earnests of millenial glory — 
harbingers of celestial bliss ! 

Next to the annual festival of Durga, one of the most 
popular in Eastern India, is that of the Charak PujaJi. 

Strictly and properly, this festival is held in honour of 
Shiva, in his character of Maha Kola ; or time the great 
destroyer of all things. In this character, his personified 
energy or consort is Parvati, under the distinction and ap- 
propriate form of Maha Kali. In the annual festival held 
in honour of the former, the worship of the latter appears 
at all times to have been blended. And, in the lapse of ages, 
the female form of Kali has become a far more important 
and formidable personage, in the eyes of the multitude, than 
the male form of Maha Kala; and often engrosses more than 
a proportionate share of the homage and adoration of de- 
luded worshippers. To save, therefore, the tediousness of 
circumlocution, and the intricacy of a perpetual double re- 
ference, we must confine ourselves to a brief notice of the 
goddess Kali, as connected with the celebration of the Cha- 
rak Pujah. 

It is proper, however, to state, that Brahmans, Kshattryas, 
and Vaishyas, take no active part in the actual celebration 
of the rites peculiar to this festival. Most of them, how- 
ever, contribute largely towards the expense of it, and 



241 



countenance the whole of the proceedings as applauding 
spectators ; though some of them, in words, profess to dis- 
approve of many of the practices. 

Of all the Hindu divinities, this goddess is the most cruel 
and revengeful. Such, according to some of the sacred le- 
gends, is her thirst for blood, that, — being unable, in one 
of her forms, on a particular occasion, to procure any of the 
giants for her prey, — in order to quench her savage appetite, 
she " actually cut her own throat, that the blood issuing 
thence, might spout into her mouth." Of the goddess, — 
represented in the monstrous attitude of supporting her 
own half-severed head in the left hand, with streams of 
blood gushing from the throat into the mouth, — images may 
this day be seen in some districts of Bengal. The supreme 
delight of this divinity, therefore, consists in cruelty and 
torture ; her ambrosia is the flesh of living votaries and 
sacrificed victims ; and her sweetest nectar, the copious 
effusion of their blood. 

The Kalika Purana, one of the divine writings, is chiefly 
devoted to a recital of the different modes of worshipping 
and appeasing this ferocious divinity. If, for example, a de- 
votee should scorch some member of his body, by the appli- 
cation of a burning lamp, the act would prove most acceptable 
to the goddess. If he should draw some blood from himself, 
and present it, the libation would be still more delectable. 
If he should cut off a portion of his own flesh, and present it 
as a burnt sacrifice, the offering would be most grateful of 
all. If the devotee should present whole burnt-offerings upon 
the altar, saying, — " Hrang, hring, Kali, Kali ! — Oh ! horrid 
toothed goddess, eat, eat ; destroy all the malignant ; cut 
with this axe ; bind, bind ; seize, seize ; drink this blood ; 
spheng, spheng ; secure, secure ! — Salutation to Kali ! " — 
these will prove acceptable in proportion to the supposed 
importance of the animated beings sacrificed. By the 
blood drawn from fishes and tortoises the goddess is pleased 
one month ; — a crocodile's blood will please her three ; 
that of certain wild animals nine ; that of a bull or a 
guana, a year : — an antelope's or wild boar's, twelve years ; 

Q 



242 



a buffaloed, rhinoceros', or tiger's, a hundred ; a lion's, a 
rein-deer's, or a maris, (mark the combination,) a thousand. 
But, by the blood of three men slain in sacrifice, she is pleased 
a hundred thousand years ! Amid all the voluminous codes of 
Hinduism, there is not a section more loathsomely minute, 
more hideously revolting, than the sanguinary chapter de- 
voted to the description of the rites and formularies to be 
observed at the sacrifice of human victims. 

Under the native dynasties, it cannot be doubted that 
human sacrifices were very largely offered. And even now, 
when this species of sacrifice has been condemned and de- 
clared to be punishable as murder by the British Govern- 
ment, clearly authenticated cases do still occasionally occur. 
During our own brief sojourn in Calcutta, a human victim 
was sacrificed at a temple of Kali in its immediate neigh- 
bourhood ; the sacrificer was seized by the officers of justice 
and capitally punished. About the same time, the Governor- 
General felt himself called upon to strip a Rajah, in the east 
of Bengal, of his independent rights ; because, in direct vio- 
lation of existing treaties, he had carried off three British 
subjects to be offered in sacrifice to Kali ! 

Indeed, this divinity is the avowed patroness of almost 
all the most atrocious outrages against the peace of society. 
Is there in India, as in other lands, a set of lawless men 
who, despising the fruits of honest industry, earn their liveli- 
hood by the plunder of their neighbours' property ? At the 
hour of midnight, the gang of desperadoes will resort to 
some spot where is reared an image of Kali. There they en- 
gage in religious ceremonies, and there they offer bloody sacri- 
fices to propitiate the favour and secure the protection of the 
goddess. Worshipping the instrument that is to cut through 
the wall of the house intended to be attacked, they address 
it in a prescribed form of words, saying, — " O, instrument, 
formed by the goddess ! Kali commands thee to cut a pas- 
sage into the house ; to cut through stones, bones, bricks, 
wood, the earth, and mountains ; and cause the dust thereof 
to be carried away by the wind !" In full assurance of the 
divine blessing, and with unwavering faith in the divine pro- 



243 



tection, they hasten to the execution of their nefarious de- 
signs. How must the very foundations of even ordinary 
moral duties be swept away in a land where theft and plun- 
der can be systematically carried on under the special 
patronage of the gods ! 

Again, is there in India, — as there is not, we believe, in 
any other land on the surface of the globe, — a still more law- 
less race of men ; — a close, compact, confederate fraternity, 
— whose irresistible fate and hereditary profession it is, to 
subsist by murder ? These, too, well known under the 
name of Thugs, find a ready and potent protectress in Kali. 
To the divinely revealed will and command of this goddess, 
they universally ascribe their origin, their institutions, their 
social laws, and their ritual observances. Intense devotion 
to Kali is the mysterious link that unites them in a bond of 
brotherhood that is indissoluble ; and with a secrecy which, 
for generations, has eluded the efforts of successive govern- 
ments to detect them. It is under her special auspices that 
all their sanguinary depradations have been planned, prose- 
cuted, and carried into execution. It is the thorough incor- 
poration of a feeling of assurance in her aid with the entire 
framework of their mental and moral being, that has im- 
parted to their union all its strength and all its terror. In 
their sense of the term, they are of all men the most super- 
stitiously exact, the most devoutly religious, in the perform- 
ance of divine worship. In honour of their guardian deity, 
there is a temple dedicated at Bindachul, near Mirzapur, to 
the north of Bengal. There, religious ceremonies are con- 
stantly performed ; and thousands of animals offered in sacri- 
fice. When a band of these leagued murderers, whose 
individuality and union have for ages been preserved in 
integrity, resolve to issue forth on their worse than maraud- 
ing expedition, deliberately intent on imbruing their hands 
in the blood of their fellows, they first betake themselves to 
the temple of the goddess ; present their prayers and suppli- 
cations and offerings there ; and vow, in the event of success, 
to consecrate to her service a large proportion of the booty. 
Should they not succeed — should they even be seized, con- 



244 



victed, and condemned to die, — their confidence in Kali does 
not waver ; their faith does not stagger. They exonerate 
the goddess from all blame. They ascribe the cause of failure 
wholly to themselves. They assume all the guilt of having 
neglected some of the divinely prescribed forms. And they 
laugh to scorn the idea that any evil could possibly have 
befallen them, had they been faithful in the observance of 
all the divinely appointed rules of their sanguinary craft. 
How must the chief corner-stone of ordinary morality be 
shaken, in a land where religion is so versatile as to throw 
the ample shield of Divine encouragement and reward over 
the most murderous banditti that ever appeared in human 
form ! 

If such be the general character of this goddess, what are 
you to expect of a festival held in honour of her lord, in his 
character as the great destroyer, — a festival, in which she, 
too, is adored, as his destructive energy ? 

Most of the sectaries that embrace the form of Maha 
Kala, as their guardian deity — belonging chiefly to the class 
of Shudras — are busied for several days before the festival, 
with various initiatory ceremonies of purification, abstinence, 
and exercises of devotion. And those, who wish to earn 
great merit on the occasion, are engaged in preparatory 
operations for a whole month. 

The festival itself derives its name of Charak Pujah from 
chakra, a discus or wheel ; in allusion to the circle performed 
in the rite of swinging, which constitutes so very prominent 
a part of the anniversary observances. An upright pole, 
twenty or thirty feet in height, is planted in the ground. 
Across the top of it, moving freely on a pin, or pivot, is 
placed horizontally another long pole. From one end of 
this transverse beam is a rope suspended, with two hooks 
affixed to it. To the other extremity is fastened another 
rope, which hangs loosely towards the ground. The devotee 
comes forward, and prostrates himself in the dust. The 
hooks are then run through the fleshy parts of his back, near 
the shoulders. A party, holding the rope at the other side, 
immediately begin to run round with considerable velocity. 



245 



By this means the wretched dupe of superstition is hoisted 
aloft into the air, and violently whirled round and round. 
The torture he may continue to endure for a longer or 
shorter period, according to his own free-will. Only, this 
being reckoned one of the holiest of acts, the longer he 
can endure the torture, the greater the pleasure conveyed to 
the deity whom he serves ; the greater the portion of merit 
accruing to himself ; and, consequently, the brighter the 
prospect of future reward. The time usually occupied ave- 
rages from ten minutes to half an hour. And as soon as 
one has ended, another candidate is ready, — aspiring to earn 
the like merit and distinction. And thus on one tree from 
five to ten or fifteen may be swung in the course of a day. 
Of these swinging posts there are hundreds and thousands 
simultaneously in operation in the province of Bengal. They 
are always erected in the most conspicuous parts of the 
towns and villages, and are surrounded by vast crowds of 
noisy spectators. On the very streets of the native city of 
Calcutta, many of these horrid swings are annually to be 
seen, and scores around the suburbs. It not unfrequently 
happens that, from the extreme rapidity of the motion, the 
ligaments of the back give way, in which case the poor de- 
votee is tossed to a distance, and dashed to pieces. A loud 
wail of commiseration, you now suppose, will be raised 
in behalf of the unhappy man who has thus fallen a martyr 
to his religious enthusiasm. No such thing ! Idolatry is 
cruel as the grave. Instead of sympathy or compassion, a 
feeling of detestation and abhorrence is excited towards 
him. By the principles of their faith, he is adjudged to 
have been a desperate criminal, in a former state of being ; 
and he has now met with this violent death, in the present 
birth, as a righteous retribution, on account of egregious 
sins committed in a former ! 

The evening of the same day is devoted to another prac- 
tice almost equally cruel. It consists in the devotees throw- 
ing themselves down from the top of a high wall, the second 
storey of a house, or a temporary scaffolding often twenty 
or thirty feet in height, upon iron spikes or knives that are 



246 



thickly stuck in a large bag or mattress of straw. But these 
sharp instruments being fixed rather loosely, and in a posi- 
tion sloping forward, the greater part of the thousands that 
fall upon them dexterously contrive to escape without serious 
damage. Many, however, are often cruelly mangled and 
lacerated ; and in the case of some, the issue proves speedily 
fatal. 

At night, numbers of the devotees sit down in the open 
air, and pierce the skin of their foreheads ; and in it, as a 
socket, place a small rod of iron, to which is suspended a 
lamp, that is kept burning till the dawn of day, while the 
lamp-bearers rehearse the praises of their favourite deity. 

Again, before the temple, bundles of thorns and other 
fire-wood are accumulated, among which the devotees roll 
themselves uncovered. The materials are next raised into 
a pile, and set on fire. Then the devotees briskly dance 
over the blazing embers, and fling them into the air with 
their naked hands, or toss them at one another. 

Some have their breasts, arms, and other parts, stuck en- 
tirely full of pins, about the " thickness of small nails, or 
packing needles." Others betake themselves to a vertical 
wheel, twenty or thirty feet in diameter, and raised consi- 
derably above the ground. They bind themselves to the 
outer rim, in a sitting posture, so that, when the wheel rolls 
round, their heads point alternately to the zenith and the 
nadir. 

But it were endless to pursue the diversity of these self- 
inflicted cruelties into all their details. There is one, how- 
ever, of so very singular a character, that it must not be 
left unnoticed. If the problem were proposed to any mem- 
ber of our own community to contrive some other dis- 
tinct species of torture,— amid the boundless variety which 
the most fertile imagination might figure to itself, probably 
the one now to be described would not be found. Some of 
these deluded votaries enter into a vow. With one hand 
they cover their under-lips with a layer of wet earth or mud ; 
on this, with the other hand, they deposit some small grains 
usually of mustard-seed. They then stretch themselves flat 



247 



on their backs, — exposed to the dripping dews of night, and 
the blazing sun by day. And their vow is, that from that 
fixed position they will not stir, — will neither move, nor 
turn, nor eat, nor drink, — till the seeds planted on the lips 
begin to sprout or germinate. This vegetable process usually 
takes place on the third or fourth day ; after which, being 
released from the vow, they arise, as they doatingly imagine 
and believe, laden with a vast accession of holiness and 
supererogatory merit. 

Methinks, some one is heard incredulously whispering, 
" Can these things really be so? or are they travellers' tales ? 
or, at least, the incoherent fictions of a distempered imagina- 
tion ? When persons leave the shores of civilization, and, 
crossing the vast ocean, come in contact with outlandish 
scenes, outlandish manners, and still more outlandish men, 
their judgments are apt to get bewildered ; and their fan- 
cies run riot, as if borne away on the wings of an unbridled 
Pegasus. More especially, if they are seized with a slight 
craze of fanaticism, they cannot but see all things through a 
discoloured and magnifying medium ; and, being deceived 
themselves, it may be thought, without any impeachment to 
their honesty, that they undesignedly lead others astray with 
their extravagant statements and exaggerated representa- 
tions.' 1 It is to repel, by anticipation, such unworthy and 
unfounded insinuations, that we have purposely rendered some 
of the preceding details so minute and specific. For where 
are the practices now described to be witnessed \ Not among 
barbarous hordes that roam over deserts untrodden by the 
foot of civilized man ; or wander by the tangled margin of 
rivers unknown to song. No ; but among the existing rem- 
nants of the most ancient civilization on the face of the 
globe ! — in the very midst of hundreds and thousands of 
professing Christians ! — in the heart of the metropolis of 
the richest, the fairest, and the mightiest province of the 
British empire ! — and under the very eye of the vice-regal 
representative of the Protestant Sovereign of these realms ! 

But the account of the Charak Pujah is not yet ended. 

On the morning of the great day of the feast, all the 



248 

multitudes crowd to the temples of Shiva, or Kali. Now, 
it happens, that in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, 
there is one of the largest and most celebrated of the tem- 
ples of Kali. The source of its celebrity is to be traced 
to a wild legend, embodied in one of the sacred Shastras ; 
and as the rehearsal of it is on the lips of thousands and 
tens of thousands, on the great day when they proceed in 
masses to worship at the shrine, it may be proper to present 
it here in an abridged form. 

It may be remembered, that, according to their mythologic 
system, the active energy of the Supreme Brahm became 
personified under a female form — and that this goddess di- 
vided, or rather multiplied herself into three, for the pur- 
pose of marrying Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. As the con- 
sort of the last of these, she became known under the name 
of Parvati. But contradictions the most irreconcileable per- 
vade all the parts of Hindu mythology. Fable rises upon 
fable, and legend upon legend, with singular profusion and 
rapidity, — each pretending to the lofty character of inspired 
truth, and yet each at such open war in many vital points 
with the preceding, that no ingenuity can reduce the mis- 
shapen mass into a form of a continuous or consistent nar- 
rative. 

In the present instance, the sacred legend thus pro- 
ceeds : — - 

Brahma, it would appear, in his earthly form or incarna- 
tion of JDahha, had a daughter named Sati, who was given 
in marriage to Shiva. On one occasion a quarrel arose be- 
tween Daksha and Shiva. The former then refused to 
invite his son-in-law to a splendid banquet which he re- 
solved to give in honour of the immortals. To this insult- 
ing slight he also added the foulest reproach, — stigmatizing 
Shiva as a wandering mendicant, a delighter in cemeteries, 
and a bearer of skulls. On hearing her husband thus re- 
viled, Sati, overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, hastily re- 
turned to the banks of the Ganges, and there determined to 
yield up her life " on the altar of domestic affliction;' 
This, we may remark in passing, is the divine example con- 



249 



stantly held forth for imitation to poor widows ; who are 
greatly stimulated thereby to become Satis, or Suttees, by 
sacrificing themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands. 
Shiva, on observing the lifeless form of his spouse, became 
quite distracted. In the bitterness of his anguish, he thrust 
his trident through the dead body, and lifting it in the air, 
commenced dancing about in the most frantic manner. By 
the violence of his aerial motions, the three worlds were 
shaken to the foundations. Gods and men were filled with 
alarm. Vishnu, the Preserver, hastened to arrest the 
threatened catastrophe. Shedding tears of sympathy, he 
endeavoured to console the phrenzied husband, by remind- 
ing him that " nothing was real in this world, but that 
every thing was altogether may a, or illusion." But Shiva's 
grief was too poignant to yield to any consolation based on 
a cold metaphysical abstraction. As he continued to reel 
in agony, he burst into a flood of tears ; and these, uniting 
with the sympathetic tears of Vishnu, formed a capacious 
lake ; which afterwards became a celebrated place of pil- 
grimage. Still he was utterly inconsolable. At length the 
Preserver shrewdly conjectured, that were the object of his 
grief removed out of view, calmness would be restored to his 
agitated soul. Accordingly, armed with a scimitar, he con- 
tinued, as the body was whirling round, to cut off one limb 
after the other. The different members, as they were succes- 
sively severed, — from the projectile force impressed on them 
by Shiva's violent movement, — were scattered to different 
and distant parts of the earth. In the excess of his distrac- 
tion, the bereaved husband discovered not his loss, till the 
whole body had disappeared. His grief was then assuaged ; 
and the universe delivered from impending destruction. 
Soon afterwards his beloved Sati reappeared, but in a 
new form ; announcing that she had happily been born 
again, as the daughter of Himavan or Himalaya, the ruler 
of mountains. In this form she became known as Parvati, 
(from Parva, the ordinary term for mountain) — the insepar- 
able companion of Shiva. 

In the meanwhile, the scattered fragments of SaWs body, 



250 



—amounting together with the ornaments, to the exact num- 
ber of fifty-one, — conferred peculiar sanctity on the places 
where they happened to fall. All of these were consecrated 
as repositories of the divine remains ; and adoration there 
became an act of extraordinary merit. At each, a temple 
was reared and dedicated to the goddess ; and in it was 
placed an image representing one or other of her thousand 
forms ; — along with an image of her husband Shiva, under 
the designation of Bhairob, or fear-inspirer ; in which capa- 
city he acts as guardian or protector of the place ; and is 
always worshipped at the same time with his spouse. 

The toes of the right foot of the goddess are said to have 
fallen a little to the south of Calcutta, on the banks of one 
of the cross branches of the Ganges, — supposed to have been 
once the channel of the main stream itself. There they 
were* buried in the earth, unsubjected to corruption or de- 
cay. The sacred spot, though illumined with beams of re- 
splendent light, remained for ages undiscovered in the 
deepest recess of the forest. At length, in the vision of 
a dream, the site was made known by the goddess her- 
self to a holy Brahman. Moved and directed by the hea- 
venly oracle, he lost no time in raising a temple over the 
divine deposit. The temple, by express revelation, was de- 
dicated to the goddess under her form of Kali ; and has ever 
since been famed under the designation of Kali-Ghat. 

To the south of Calcutta is a spacious level plain, between 
two and three miles in length ; and a mile, or a mile and a- 
half in breadth. On the west it is washed by the sacred 
Ganges ; on whose margin, about the middle of the plain, 
Fort- William rears its ramparts and battlements. Along the 
north is a magnificent range of buildings, — the Supreme 
Court, the Town Hall, with other public edifices, — and, in 
the centre, most conspicuous of all, the arcades, and 
columns, and lofty dome of Government House. Along the 
whole of the eastern side, at short intervals, is a succession 
of palace-like mansions,— occupied as the abodes of the 
more opulent of the European residents. In front of this 
range, facing the west,— and, between it, therefore, and the 



251 



plain, is the broadest and most airy street in Calcutta, well 
known under the name of Chowringhee. Chiefly to the 
north of the plain, and partly to the east, beyond the ranges 
of European offices and residences, lies the native city, — 
stretching its intricate mass of narrow lanes and red brick 
houses, and " hive-like 1 ' bambu huts, over an extent of many 
miles, — and teeming with half a million of human beings ! At a 
short distance from the south-east corner of the plain, across 
a narrow belt of low suburban cottages, lies the celebrated 
temple of Kali-Grhat. The grand direct thoroughfare to- 
wards it from the native city, is along the Chowringhee road. 

Thither, early before sunrise, on the morning of the great 
day of the Charak festival, we once hastened to witness the ex- 
traordinary spectacle. After a brief twilight, the first rays of 
the sun suddenly darted from the clear horizon, as if vio- 
lently shot from some heavenly artillery. Rejoicing like a 
strong man to run his race, the glorious luminary soon shone 
down from the serene and cloudless sky, with a glare of un- 
mitigated brightness ; as if consciously designing by the 
contrast of light and purity and peace above, to heighten 
and aggravate the turmoil and confusion and horror of the 
dark scene below. 

From all the lanes and alleys leading from the native city, 
multitudes were pouring into the Chowringhee road, which 
seemed at every point to symbolize the meeting of the wa- 
ters, — realizing through its entire length, the image of a 
mighty confluence of innumerable living streams. The mere 
spectators could easily be distinguished from the special 
devotees. The former were seen standing, or walking 
along with eager gaze ; arrayed in their gayest holiday 
dress ; exhibiting every combination and variety of the 
snow-white garb, and tinsel glitter of Oriental costume. 
The latter came marching forward in small isolated groups, 
— each group averaging in number, from half-a-dozen, to 
twelve or fifteen, — and constituted somewhat after this man- 
ner : — Most of the party have their loose robes and fore- 
heads plentifully besprinkled with vermillion or rose pink. 
Two or three of them are decked in speckled or party- 



252 



coloured garments ; uttering ludicrous unmeaning sounds ; 
and playing off all sorts of antique gestures, not unlike the 
merry-andrews on the stage of a country fair. Two or three, 
with garlands of flowers hanging about their neck, or tied 
round the head, have their sides transpierced with iron rods, 
which project in front, and meet at an angular point, to 
which is affixed a small vessel in the form of a shovel. Two 
or three, covered with ashes, carry in their hands iron spits 
or rods of different lengths, small bambu canes or hukah 
tubes, hard-twisted cords or living snakes, whose fangs 
had been extracted, — bending their limbs into unsightly atti- 
tudes, and chaunting legendary songs. Two or three more 
are the bearers of musical instruments — horned trumpets, 
gongs, tinkling cymbals, and large hoarse drums surmount- 
ed with towering bunches of black and white ostrich fea- 
thers, which keep waving and nodding not unlike the heav- 
ing sombre plumes of a hearse, — and all of them belaboured 
as furiously as if the impression were, that the louder the 
noise and the more discordant the notes, the better and 
more charming the music. Thus variously constituted, the 
groups of devotees were proceeding along. On looking be- 
hind, one group was seen following after another as far as 
the eye could reach : — on looking before, one group was 
seen preceding another, as far as the eye could reach like 
wave after wave, in interminable succession. 

Besides these groups of worshippers, who are reckoned 
pre-eminent in holiness and merit, there are others that ad- 
vance in processions, — bearing various pageants, flags, ban 
ners, models of temples, images of gods, and other mytholo- 
gical figures, with portable stages on which men and women 
are engaged in ridiculous and often worse than ridiculous 
pantomimic performances. Hundreds of these processions 
spread over the southern side of the plain, presenting a spec- 
tacle so vast and varied — so singular and picturesque — that 
the pencil of the most skilful artist would not be dishonoured 
if it failed in adequately representing it. 

At the extremity of Chowringhee, the road towards the 
temple narrows considerably. The throng is now so dense 



253 



that one is literally carried along. On approaching the pre- 
cincts of the sacred shrine, it is found surrounded by a court 
and high wall. After entering the principal gate, which is on 
the western side, the temple itself starts up full in view. To 
the south of it is a spacious open hall or portico, elevated 
several feet above the ground, and surrounded by a flight of 
steps— above which rise a range of pillars that support the 
roof. Between the portico and the temple is a narrow path- 
way, along which the stream of spectators was flowing ; 
while the groups of the devotees marched round the side 
farthest from the temple. Being of the number of the spec- 
tators, we mingled with the teeming throng, that pressed 
on with maddening phrenzy to obtain a glimpse of the idol. 
Here one and another would start aside, and knock their 
heads against the temple wall, or brick pavement, mut- 
tering incantations to command the attention and attract 
the favour of the goddess. It may here be noticed in pass- 
ing, that a temple in India is not, like a Christian church, 
a place for the disciples to assemble in and engage in rea- 
sonable worship. No : It is ordinarily designed as merely 
a receptacle for the senseless block of the idol, and a 
company of Brahmans, as its guardian attendants ! Hence, 
as there is not much occasion for light, there are few or no 
windows. The light of day is usually admitted only by 
the front door, when thrown wide open. Darkness is thus 
commingled with light in the idol cell ; and tends to add 
to the mysteriousness of the scene. The multitudes all con- 
gregate without ; but there is no preaching in their " halls of 
convocation," — no devotional exercises to raise the soul on 
the wings of heavenly contemplation, — no instructions in the 
knowledge of the true God, or the plan of a complete sal- 
vation, — no inculcation of motives to lead to the forsaking 
of sin, — no animated exhortations to the cultivation of vir- 
tue and piety : — all, all is one unchanging round of sacrifice 
and ceremony ; of cruelty, and sport, and lifeless form. 

Standing immediately opposite the temple gate, we saw on 
either side stationed, as usual, a party of Brahmans to receive 
the proffered gifts. On one side lay a heap of flowers that 



254 



had been consecrated by being carried within and presented 
to the goddess. On the other side, a large heap of money, — 
copper, and silver, and gold, — that had been contributed as 
free-will offerings. To the spectators, as they passed along, 
the Brahmans were presenting consecrated flowers, which 
were eagerly carried off as precious relics, — and,, in ex- 
change for them, the joyous votaries threw down what 
money they possessed. And this they did as profusely, as it 
was assuredly done cheerfully and without a grudge. Ah ! 
here again were we painfully reminded of the state of things 
as regards liberality on principle in Christian lands. What 
a contrast to our meagre and half-extorted contributions in 
the cause of Christian benevolence, was presented by the 
spectacle at the temple of Kali-Grhat ! What ! was one led 
to exclaim, — What ! — is it really so, that error is fraught 
with a mightier charm than truth ? — that a foul and sanguin- 
ary superstition can operate on the soul more effectually 
than the benign religion of heaven ? — that ignorance is more 
powerful than divine knowledge ? — that heathenish custom 
is superior in efficacy to enlightened principle ? — and that 
the fear of a dumb idol can exert a more potent influence 
than the love of a bleeding, dying Saviour ? Ah, if this be 
so, what can our inference be, except that amongst us, al- 
most every one ought to bear about him a frontlet between 
his eyes, inscribed with the motto, " profession not prin- 
ciple ?" — and that almost all, having a name to live, are 
nevertheless dead in spiritual lethargy and slumber, and 
deaf to the most sacred claims of duty towards Grod and 
man ! 

And one's wonder could not be diminished, when he looked 
within the temple ; and, in the midst of the " darkness visi- 
ble," beheld the horrid block of the idol that had succeeded 
in conquering men's selfishness, and in turning the stagnant 
pool of grasping covetousness into a running stream of lavish 
liberality. The figure within this temple is, in several of its 
parts, for what reason we know not, somewhat incomplete ; 
but, it is still sufficiently frightful and hideous. In the 
sacred legends, the goddess is constantly described, and, 



255 



in the thousands of images that are annually made of her, 
she is almost uniformly delineated as a female of black, or 
dark blue complexion, dancing savagely on the body of her own 
husband. She is represented with four arms ; — having in one 
an exterminating sword, and in another a human head held 
fast by the hair ; a third points downwards, " indicating the 
destruction that surrounds her, 11 and the fourth is raised up- 
wards, " in allusion to the future regeneration of nature by 
a new creation." She is represented with wild dishevelled 
hair, reaching to her feet. Her countenance is most ferocious. 
Her tongue protrudes from a distorted mouth, and hangs 
over the chin. She has three eyes, red and fiery, one of 
which glares in her forehead. Her lips and eye-brows are 
streaked with blood, and a crimson torrent is streaming 
down her breast. She has ear-rings in her ears, — but what 
are they I — they are the carcasses of some hapless victims 
of her fury. She has a girdle round the waist, — but what 
is it ? — it is a girdle of bloody hands, said to have been cut 
off the wounded bodies of her prostrate foes. She has a 
necklace round the neck, — but what is it ? — it is a necklace 
of ghastly skulls, said to have been cut off the thousands of 
giants and others slain in her battles ! And such is the 
monster-divinity who, on that day, calls forth the shouts, and 
acclamations, and free-will offerings of myriads of adoring 
worshippers ! 

Passing now to the eastern side of the court, we soon 
saw what the groups of devotees were to be engaged in. 
Towards the wall, there were stationed several blacksmiths, 
with sharp instruments in their hands. Those of a particu- 
lar group, that carried the rods canes and other implements, 
now came forward. One would stretch out his side, and 
getting it instantly pierced through, — in would pass one of 
his rods or canes. Another would hold out his arm, and 
getting it perforated, — in would pass one of his iron spits or 
tubes. A third would protrude his tongue, and getting it 
too bored through, — in would pass one of his cords or ser- 
pents. And thus, all of a group that desired it, had them- 
selves variously transpierced or perforated. When these 



956 



had finished,— another group was waiting in readiness to 
undergo the cruel operation : — and so, another and another, 
apparently without end. 

Several groups then returning, mounted the steps of the 
portico in front of the temple, to prepare for their most 
solemn act of worship. But, oh, how impotent must human 
language ever be in the attempt to convey an adequate im- 
pression of the scene that followed ! 

Those of the different groups that carried in front the 
vessels already referred to, now ranged themselves all around 
the interior of the colonade. All the rest assembled them- 
selves within this living circle. On a sudden, at a signal 
given, commenced the bleating and the lowing and the 
struggling of animals slaughtered in sacrifice, at the farthest 
end of the portico ; and speedily was the ground made to 
swim with sacrificial blood. At the same moment of time, 
the vessel-carriers threw upon the burning coals in their 
vessels handfuls of Indian pitch, composed of various com- 
bustible substances. — Instantly ascended the smoke and 
the flame, and the sulphureous smell. Those who had the 
musical instruments sent forth their loud and jarring and 
discordant sounds. And those who were transpierced began 
dancing in the most frantic manner, — pulling backwards and 
forwards through their wounded members the rods and the 
canes, the spits and the tubes, the cords and the writhing 
serpents, till their bodies seemed streaming with their own 
blood ! All this was carried on simultaneously ; — and that 
too within a briefer period of time than has now been oc- 
cupied in the feeble and inadequate attempt to describe it ! 
Again and again would the loud shouts ascend from the 
thousands of applauding spectators— shouts of " Victory to 
Kali ! Victory to the great Kali !" 

Oh, as we gazed at the harrowing spectacle, how was the 
soul, by the resistless force of contrast, hurried away to 
more highly favoured climes ! Yes ; — standing though we 
were at the distance of fifteen thousand miles from our na- 
tive land, how did the soul with lightning speed flee 
across intervening oceans and continents !— and, in the 



257 



chambers of imagery, revive and realize the visions of other 
days ! When we thought of the land of our fathers — that 
happiest of lands, if it only knew its oivn happiness ! — that 
hallowed land of Sabbaths and Sabbath observances : — when 
we recalled to remembrance the solemn stillness of a Sabbath 
morn ; — how the murmuring noises of the crowded city are 
hushed, and silence spreads her sober mantle over the re- 
posing landscape ; — how, at the sound of the church bell, 
the city gates pour forth their multitudes, and the country 
hamlets their groups of simple-hearted peasantry ; — how 
all go up with joyous expectation to the courts of God's 
house ; there to hold communion with the great I Am, and 
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and the 
Holy Spirit that enkindles with the fervour of Divine love ; 
— how they join with sweet melody of heart in the voice of 
praise and thanksgiving ; and listen with breathless earnest- 
ness to the soul-ravishing message of infinite mercy and re- 
deeming love ; — how they peacefully retire, with calm serenity 
diffused over the countenance, to the secret chamber of 
meditation and heaven-aspiring prayer ; — and how each 
household patriarch, assembling all the members around 
the family altar, opens anew the book of life ; distributes, in 
suitable fragments, the heavenly manna ; and finally com- 
mends one and all to the care and guardianship of that God 
who has led his fathers through the weary pilgrimage of 
this life, and has engaged by covenant-promise to be the God 
of his children still ! Ah, when these fondly remembered 
observances of a Christian Sabbath in our native land rose 
so vividly before the mental eye, in presence of the abomi- 
nable exhibitions of a heathen festival ; — and when we con- 
trasted the pure, peaceful, soul-elevating exercises of the 
former, with the scene of infernal revelries then before our 
view ; — how could we help exclaiming ? — Surely, if the former 
be a fit emblem and harbinger of that eternal Sabbath which 
rolls over heaven's bright inhabitants ; this other scene must 
be an emblem and harbinger of the restless tossings of the 
burning lake ! And, oh, is it possible that if British Chris- 
tians were transported thither to gaze, but for a single mo- 
lt 



258 



ment, on such a master triumph of Satanic delusion, — is it 
conceivable that they could give sleep to their eyes or 
slumber to their eyelids, till they entered a vow in heaven 
to do all that in them lay to demolish such a hideous fabric of 
idolatry and superstition, and rear the beauteous temple of 
Christianity upon the ruins ? 

In conclusion, therefore, we would, with our whole heart and 
strength and soul, call upon all who profess to be disciples 
of the Lord J esus, to come forward now " to the help of the 
Lord, — to the help of the Lord against the mighty We 
call upon you by that wondrous scheme for the redemption 
of a ruined world, which from all eternity engaged the 
counsels of the Godhead, to compassionate the poor dying 
perishing heathen; — not to allow the Prince of darkness any 
longer to trample on his miserable victims without con- 
trol, or drag them as unresisting captives along the broad 
road that leadeth to perdition. We call upon you by 
the miseries of earth, the torments of hell, the joys of hea- 
ven ; by all that the Saviour has done and suffered, in His 
vicarious obedience and agony and bloody sweat, — to come 
forth now and be instrumental in erecting the standard of the 
Cross on the downfall of the crescent and the ruins of Pagan- 
ism; — and thus to snatch from the regions of woe the souls 
of many who may be fitted to sing the praises of Jehovah 
and the Lamb ! We call upon you, by your own eternal 
destiny, not to allow the fountain of Divine benevolence, 
once opened on the hill of Calvary, to remain there from age 
to age shut up and sealed, — a mere spectacle of solitary and 
useless and barren grandeur.— But come now, and draw 
therefrom in copious streams ; replenish your reservoirs ; fer- 
tilize the soil ; — and thus produce a rich harvest of fruit, 
which, — when the earth and all the works therein are burnt 
up, and the visible heavens are no more, — will increase in 
beauty, and flourish for ever on the shores of a blissful im- 
mortality ! 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE GOSPEL, THE ONLY EFFECTUAL INSTRUMENT IN REGENERATING 

INDIA GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF THE AGENCY TO BE EMPLOYED 

IN ITS PROPAGATION. 

Various expedients proposed fir remedying the evils under 
which India has for ages groaned — Some of these briefly reviewed 
— The Scheme of Political Reform — The Scheme of Economic 
Reform — The Scheme of Secular Education Reform — The Schem e 
of Temporizing Religious Reform — All these nugatory— -The Gos- 
pel, the only effectual instrument of genuine Reformation — Illus- 
tration of this — The practical question proposed, How, or by what 
means is the Gospel to be most successfully propagated ? — Quota- 
tion from the Author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm — The 
three generic measures, Christian Education of the Young, Preach- 
ing to the Adults, and the Circulation of the Bible — These not an- 
tagonists, but mutual friends and allies — In reference to Educa- 
tion, the practical question considered, Whether is it better at the 
outset, to pursue the direct method of attempting at once to impart 
a general elementary knowledge to the many, or the indirect me- 
thod of attempting to reach the many through the instrumentality 
of the instructed few ? — In reference to Preaching, the great prac- 
tical question considered, Who ought to be the preachers ? — Gene- 
ral reasons adduced, to prove that they ought to be natives — The 
inadequate supply of existing missionary stations — Prodigious 
disproportion between the number of labourers and the extent of 
the field — Occasional itineracy, a very inefficient means of evangel- 
ization — Different causes of this pointed out — Superiority of the 
localizing system — Other arguments, besides the numerical one, in 
favour of an extensive native agency — The diminution of expense — 
The necessity of the mode of life being such as to bring a holy ex- 
ample fully to bear upon the people — The necessity of a familiar 
acquaintance ivith the tones and idiom of speech ; the manners, 



260 



habits, and prevalent modes of thinking — Natives, the real refor- 
mers of their own country — How qualified natives are to be raised 
— Objections to Education Institutions in connection with the mis- 
sionary enterprise considered — That missionaries are thereby con- 
verted into Teachers, Professors, and Lecturers, instead of being 
Preachers — That the scheme is different from that which was bles- 
sed with a Pentacostal effusion — That it is contrary to Apostolic 
example — This allegation examined at length in its various bear- 
ings — Circulation of the Bible — Question considered as to the 
amount of good to be expected from the written word in the absence 
of the living voice to direct attention towards it — To raise up a 
native agency ought to be not a secondary, but a primary object, 
in conducting the missionary enterprise — Happy day for India, 
when through the instrumentality of the educational and other 
means employed, qualified natives shall become the Christian 
teachers, preachers, and translators to their countrymen I 

Suppose the vital pulse of a nation to be for ages animated, 
its internal spring and life for ages saturated and leavened 
with the spirit of such a system as that of Hinduism, — a 
system which, by confounding the creature with the Creator, 
tends to annihilate the very feeling of moral responsibility, 
or, if conscience will speak out, points to a scheme by which 
man may practically assume to himself the merit of all that 
is good, and attribute to Deity the demerit of all that is 
evil : — Suppose the external form and manifestation of a na- 
tion's life to be for ages cast into the mould of those count- 
less observances which are the spontaneous growth and 
product of such a system as that of Hinduism, — observances 
beneath the shelter of whose divine sanction or divinely ap- 
pointed expiations there is no act of lying or deceit, fraud 
or dishonesty, vice or immorality, theft or plunder, devasta- 
tion or bloodshed, which may not be perpetrated with a free 
and fearless impunity as to future retribution : — Suppose a 
nation to be for ages so inwardly saturated, and so outward- 
ly moulded, what could we expect to find as the resulting 
condition of the myriads of its people ? — What could we pos- 
sibly expect, unless a condition the most degraded and de- 
moralized, the most wretched and miserable ? And is not 



261 



this, by universal consent, the present condition of the mil- 
lions of India ? 

Suppose, next, salvation and eternity were for the moment 
kept out of view; — suppose our consideration were wholly 
limited to the narrow span of time, and it were simply asked, 
How is the temporal estate of India's teeming population to 
be ameliorated, — their personal, domestic, and social happi- 
ness to be augmented, — their individual and national char- 
acter to be elevated and improved \ What must be the 
soundest and most enlightened reply ? 

In the endeavour to return a practical response to such a 
question, the men of this world are not slow in propounding 
their varied specifics. Those who attribute most of the evils 
to the influence of a grinding despotism tell us, that the es- 
tablishment of a representative government and free institu- 
tions — the investiture of the great body of the people with mu- 
nicipal rights and political privileges — would, by achieving 
their emancipation from a tyrannical yoke, raise them in 
the scale of civilization, comfort, and earthly felicity. What 
enlightened mind is not ready to acknowledge such a govern- 
ment and institutions, such rights and privileges, to be 
among the greatest of temporal blessings — and productive 
of the greatest temporal good ? But does not all experience 
prove that these must be the effects, — the results of something 
antecedent, — ere they can become the causes of any real and 
lasting consequent good \ — For what are the institutions and 
privileges in question? — What, but the visible forms in 
which certain previously excogitated opinions and cherished 
principles are embodied ? — What, but the external organs 
for the full manifestation and developement of these prin- 
ciples and opinions ? To attempt, therefore, to regenerate 
a people by bestowing upon them free institutions at the very 
outset, — when as yet they are literally steeped in the very 
slough of bondage intellectual moral and religious, indi- 
vidual social and political, — is surely to begin at the wrong 
end. It is to confer forms that are the sensible vehicles 
of principles and opinions totally alien from those which 
ages have rendered inveterate ! It is to bestow physical 



262 



organs adapted and designed to manifest principles and 
opinions absolutely diverse from those which immemorial 
usage has tended to consecrate. What is this but to at- 
tempt to convey to an infant the strength of a giant, by 
forcing into its hands the club of Hercules ? — or to impart 
to a fool the wisdom of a philosopher, by investing him 
with an Academician's gown ? — or to convert an Icelandic 
waste into a tropical garden, by suddenly transplanting into 
it the saplings of palmiras and tamarinds ? Incongruous and 
abortive attempts ! First, convey to the infant the giant's 
strength, — and the new-born vigour will spontaneously ex- 
hibit itself in seeking for the giant's weapons. Impart to 
the fool the intellectual energy of the philosopher, — and 
this rare endowment will spontaneously develope itself 
through the medium of appropriate external symbols. 
Communicate to the sterile waste the heat and moisture of 
a tropical clime, — and these vivifying powers will spon- 
taneously manifest themselves in the most luxuriant pro- 
duce. In like manner, first imbue the mind of an enslaved 
people with the true spirit, the true genius, the true senti- 
ment of rational freedom, — and these will speedily manifest 
their inherent power by shaking off, like old fashioned and 
worn out garments, the positive forms and organs of an 
oppressive despotism ; and, at one and the same time, cloth- 
ing themselves in the representative forms, and developing 
themselves through the congenial organs of a free constitu- 
tion, — with its equitable sanctions, rights, privileges, and 
laws. 

Others, — convinced of the impossibility of effecting, and the 
consequent mockery of pretending to effect, the regeneration 
of an utterly ignorant and depraved populace by any merely 
political expedients, — have recourse to the plans and projects 
of the Economists. The impoverished and famished con- 
dition of the people, say they, is the originating cause of 
most of their miseries. Only increase their wealth, their 
capital, or the means of personal comfort and refinement, — 



263 



and you will render them happy and flourishing. In order 
to this, there must be a diminution of the land-tax and 
other public burdens ; — there must be the introduction of 
an enlightened system of commerce ; — there must be a skil- 
ful developement of the internal resources of the country ; 

there must be the application of machinery to the varied 

products of a soil exhaustless in its fertility ;-— there must 
be increased facilities for communication and exchange by 
the construction of roads and railways, canals and bridges. 
Now, all this is very good, excellent, and praiseworthy, so 
far as it goes. What philanthropist would not rejoice to 
promote any plan which promised to effect the alleviation of 
human suffering— the augmentation of human bliss I But, 
in the present circumstances of India, is not such a scheme 
of economical reform, equally with that of political reform, 
—when proposed as the primary antecedent measure, — ob- 
noxious to the grand objection of beginning at the end in- 
stead of the beginning 9 Or, even if it were not, how would 
its most unbounded success secure the great ultimate end 
in view, viz., the real prosperity and permanent happiness of 
the people ? Suppose the wealth of every individual,— from 
the humble occupant of a bambu hut, to the lordly proprietor 
of a marble palace— were increased tenfold, or a hundred- 
fold, what influence, immediate and controlling, would mere 
affluence exert in bridling passion, extirpating vice, demo- 
lishing superstition ? Bather, while the mind and morals 
of the people remained unreclaimed, would not the inevitable 
tendency of an increase of wealth be, to open up an enlarg- 
ed sphere for the indulgence of every wayward desire and 
propensity of corrupt nature 2 While the spirit of Hin- 
duism remained in its entireness, would not an ampler scope 
be afforded for the manifestation of its baneful power \ The 
enhanced profits of the lower orders, instead of being trans- 
ferred to the public treasury, would go to swell their offerings 
to priests and idols. The larger revenues of the noble and 
the powerful, instead of being applied to develope the bound- 
less capabilities of the soil, would be expended in throwing 
new splendour over the celebration of rites and festivals ; 



264 



which might minister to their pride and love of fame in this 
life, and hold out the prospect of raising them to the en- 
joyments of a higher heaven in the next. The improved re- 
sources of the Brahmans, instead of being appropriated to 
real enlightenment of the popular mind, would be lavished 
in restoring and multiplying those purely scholastic semi- 
naries and idolatrous fanes and other establishments, — so 
well calculated to command the reverence, to rivet the 
mind and heart, to engross the passions and interests, and to 
enstamp the manners and customs of a sensuous apathetic 
imaginative people. The improved facilities of intercom- 
munion between the different provinces would only tend 
greatly to augment the number, and prolong the period, of 
meritorious pilgrimages to distant shrines and other holy 
places. In this way, every additional increment to mere 
wealth, instead of insuring a harvest of reformation and en- 
during prosperity, might only enlarge the springheads of 
that general corruption which must ever terminate in con- 
fusion and ruin. Chains of iron might, for a while, be con- 
verted into chains of gold, but the people would be manacled 
and miserable still; — and only the more hopelessly miserable, 
inasmuch as the road to destruction would be strewn with 
more alluring, though not less illusive fascinations. 

Persuaded that if men be vicious and depraved, mere 
wealth would either leave them unchanged for the better, or 
make them more vicious and depraved than before, numbers 
have risen up to assert that something more is indispensable. 
Ignorance say they, ignorance of the laws of nature and of all 
true science is the main source of vice and unhappiness. 
Only give men knowledge, — useful scientific knowledge, — 
and you will enlighten, reclaim, and elevate them to a new 
platform of earthly bliss. As if the wisdom of this world 
were resolved as long as possible to pass bye the only 
efficacious instrument, morals and religion have been ex- 
cluded from this reforming scheme ! And since both 
in India and in Britain it has found the ablest advocates, 



265 



it is well to consider its peculiar adaptation to the end in 
view. 

How often have we heard of the streams of " useful know- 
ledge" flowing through the land, and fertilizing the intellects 
of the people into a rich harvest of reason and intelligence. 
Yea, after the manner and amplitude of Oriental hyperbole, 
how often have we heard this knowledge compared to a 
mighty ocean which has already begun, and is finally destin- 
ed to encompass the whole world of intellectual being ? Well, 
granting for a moment to the ador&rs of knowledge their 
very heart's desire, might we not, for their special edification, 
push their own parallel into a few particulars? Modern 
knowledge, say they, is like the great ocean, seen to roll its 
waters on every shore ! What then ? — and if, like the great 
ocean, it has its serviceable tides, may it not have its de- 
structive inundations too I If, like the great ocean, it has 
its depths profound, may it not have its straits and shallows 
too ? If, like the great ocean, it has its roads and havens, 
may it not have its rocks and quicksands too ? If, like the 
great ocean, it has its gales and gentle breezes, may it not 
have its storms and tempests too ? 

But are we left to mere hypotheses on this subject ? No. 
Let us then briefly advert to the mode in which human know- 
ledge without religion does, in point of fact, usually operate. 
Experience amply testifies that every where the heart of 
man is naturally proud and selfish ; his intellect dark and 
degraded. And while selfishness leads him to convert his 
own progress in any branch of knowledge into a test of its 
superior excellence, the degradation of his intellect slavishly 
binds him to the exclusive pursuit of that which is merely 
natural; having no spontaneous relish for those sublimer spi- 
ritual truths, that specially concern the interests of eternity. 
This knowledge, however, from its variety, seizes, and 
from its adaptation to the natural intellect, fills all the ave- 
nues of the soul. Hence, the man who is much occupied 
with his favourite theme, soon becoming enamoured of it, 
gradually attains to proficiency ; and, at last, succeeds in ac- 
quiring a reputation for learning and wisdom. This, very 



266 



naturally, redoubles his zeal and his diligence. As he pro- 
ceeds, his intellect grows in strength ; and becomes ram- 
pant with confidence. It exults in detecting the weaknesses 
and failures of others ; it glories in its own acquirements 
and achievements ; it trusts implicitly to its own sagacity, 
and relies exclusively on its own resources ; it is filled with 
self-sufficiency, and swoln with self-conceit ; — and, as the 
very frequency with which it may have formed theories and 
pictures of morality and religion, too often renders it insen- 
sible to the practical obligations of both, it soon acknow- 
ledges no master, — pronounces its own light to be sufficient, 
— scorning to yield reverence even to the High and Holy 
One ; who alone is Light, and Truth, and Life, and Goodness. 
Every unsanctified intellect thus becomes a tyrant; every mas- 
ter intellect a master tyrant. The more splendid the talents, 
the deeper the shades that are cast on a nature already, 
alas, very dark, and very depraved ! The more towering 
the genius, the more tremendous the engine, for spreading 
devastation through the empire of truth and order, godliness 
and sobriety ! 

Now, when many are so trained, so disciplined, and so 
prepared, society,— like the luxuriant, but deceitful verdure 
that clothes the precincts of the volcano — has attained to its 
state of greatest external brilliancy and internal decay : — and 
the elements that long slumbered, only to accumulate the 
greater strength, must at length burst forth in desolating 
fury. All bonds are broken ; all obligations dissolved ; all 
rights abolished ; all government subverted ; and all things 
sacred and profane trampled under foot by a tyranny that is 
merciless, just in proportion to the light, and knowledge, 
and power of the unsanctified intellect. 

Is this an imaginary picture? Would to God that it 
were ! Unless all history be a riddle, and its lessons the 
visions of a dreamer, this in the present corrupt state of 
human nature, is a portraiture of the inevitable tendency of 
all unsanctified knowledge— a tendency, to which the ex- 
perience of ages bears its unimpeachable testimony. But 
why refer to past ages ? Why not to the events of our own 



267 



day 2 — and amongst these, why not to the most terrible ex- 
emplification of the tendency and effects of knowledge without 
religion, recorded in the annals of all time ! Some of the 
original founders of the modern French philosophy, about 
the middle of last century, were, beyond all debate, in their 
own sense of the term, philanthropists. For, was not theirs 
a system, which, without the aid of religion at all, according 
to their own calculation, was to regenerate the world \ Be- 
fore their system, was not barbarism every where to give 
place to civilization — preponderant rights to equality — and 
tyranny to liberty \ Was not truth, so long buried beneath 
the rubbish of centuries of ignorance and error, to ex- 
perience a species of resurrection ? Was not reason, so long 
befooled by prejudice and superstition, to be restored to her 
rightful ascendancy in the intellectual firmament ? In a word, 
was not the new philosophy to construct an altar whence 
the flames were expected to ascend and spread and 
brighten, till they poured the stream of illumination round 
the globe \ 

Magnificent rising sun of promise ! — doomed how inglo- 
riously to set in darkness ? Alas ! the heart of man is de- 
ceitful above all' things, and desperately wicked ; who can 
know it ? Not one who does not see it clearly reflected in 
the spotless mirror of God's own word. The Encyclopaedists 
and Economists, and the whole body of fraternizing Illumi- 
nati of France, in casting that eternal word in derision away 
from them, did thereby cast away the only lamp that would 
have guided them through the labyrinth of the heart's natural 
perverseness. Who then need wonder that, wholly ignorant 
as they were of the real nature of the disease, they should 
have blundered fatally in prescribing a remedy ? And has 
not the disastrous issue accordingly shown that, instead of 
kindling a light which might illuminate the world, they were 
only fanning a flame that was soon to envelope it in a gene- 
ral conflagration? 

Ah ! if one of the better-intentioned of the earlier fathers 
of the new philosophy had only arisen from the grave ; and 
alighted in the vale of Paris during the midnight gloom of 



268 



the Heign of Terror ; — if, there, he had met, in personified 
forms, his own Philosophy metamorphosed into undisguised 
Atheism, openly proclaiming that there was no God, and that 
death was an eternal sleep ; — and, along with Atheism, her 
legitimate offspring, savage Anarchy, wielding his tremend- 
ous scimitar ; fresh reeking with the blood of thousands of 
unhappy victims, slaughtered in the name of humanity. — 
Ah ! methinks, he would start back as aghast at the hide- 
ous aspect of his own double progeny, as the " Archangel 
fallen,'' from the shapeless monsters he encountered at the 
gates of Pandemonium! And, like the thunder-stricken 
Seraph, he might thus break silence : — 

" Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, 
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance 
Thy miscreated front athwart my way ? 
***** 

What thing thou art thus double formed ? and why, 
In this infernal vale first met, thou calPdst 
Me Father, and that phantom calPdst my Son ? 
I know thee not, and never saw till now 
Sight more detestable than him and thee." 

To whom his own darling Philosophy, now transformed into 
naked, hideous Atheism, might thus reply 

" Hast thou forgot me, then, and do I seem 
Now in thine eye so foul ? once deem'd so fair. 
* * * when at th' Assembly * * * * 
****** with thee combin'd 
In bold conspiracy againt heaven's King, 
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright, 
Then shining heav'nly fair, a goddess arm'd, 
Out of thy head I sprung." 

Instantly demon Anarchy, Atheism's natural child, stands 
forth, — 

" Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." 

With earthquake shock he falls upon the hapless father.— 
More successful in the onslaught than his Pandemonian pro- 
totype, he drags him quivering to the guillotine— and speedily 
holds up his severed head to the gaze of a frenzied mul- 
titude ;-— an everlasting monument of the triumph of philoso- 



269 



phy without religion — of the golden age of equal rights — of 
the halcyon reign of unbounded liberty ! 

After an example so recent and so calamitous, would it 
not indicate something like insanity to attempt to regener- 
ate a country like India, by means of human philosophy and 
human science alone ? Hinduism, — which is so huge a com- 
pound of all that is false monstrous and extravagant in 
every department of knowledge, physical literary and religi- 
ous, — could not long resist the vigorous onset of European sci- 
ence, if conducted on a scale of national magnitude. In the 
sudden demolition of established systems and established 
forms, — and in the entire absence of positive principles of 
counteractive power, — the newly awakened spirit might spring 
at one bound into the opposite extreme ; — manifesting itself 
in actions and events, from the dim and distant contempla- 
tion of which, even in imagination, the mind most gladly re- 
tires. Exhausted at length by its own convulsive efforts, 
the sceptical and irreligious spirit might become stripped of 
all vital energy ; while, as in the case of other revolutions, 
its very excesses of incredulity and indiscriminate outrage 
might produce a powerful reaction in favour of the ancient 
creed. The national mind of a people like that of India — 
among whom the religious sentiment or propensity has ever 
been manifested with peculiar power, — might, with greater 
fervour than ever, rally round the standards of a faith which, 
though fiercely proscribed, had still lingered and survived 
behind the entrenchment of customs manners and usages, 
rendered inveterate by the practice of ages ; — and might, 
with greater tenacity than ever, cling to forms and obser- 
vances, the abrogation of which had entailed nought but de- 
vastation and ruin ; and the absence of which had left a 
vacuum not to be supplied by the dim abstractions of science 
or the frigid speculations of philosophy. In a word, the tem- 
ples might be repaired ; the idols reseated ; the offerings and 
sacrifices renewed; the rites and ceremonies reinstituted ; and 
the festivals celebrated with greater pomp and magnificence 
than ever. |' In either case, whether viewed in its direct ope- 
ration, simply as the destroyer (without supplying a substi- 



270 



tute), — or in its reaction, as the restorer of a system like 
that of Hinduism, what becomes of the boasted power of 
mere human science to raise a people circumstanced as are 
the Hindus to the enjoyment of a sort of millenium of tem- 
poral bliss ? Alas, alas, from first to last — from beginning 
to end, — it is all mockery and delusion, as pregnant with 
disaster as with disappointment and shame ! 

Constrained by the united voice of reason and experience, 
many of the leaders of public opinion on such subjects as 
the present, have at length confessed that no where is igno- 
rant vicious enslaved man to be regenerated by mere politi- 
cal, economic, or philosophic reforms. They do now profess 
to tell us, in no faint whispers, that morals and religion of 
some description are absolutely necessary for the organi- 
zation and maintenance of a free and happy state of society. 
This is a truth which almost all in every age, who have 
sounded the depths of the human spirit in its varied wants 
cravings and appetencies, have been constrained to pro- 
claim. The acknowledgment of it is a concession which 
has often been extorted from the practical penetrative saga- 
city of men, who, in their own lives, gave fatal evidence that 
they would falsify it if they could. " That religion," re- 
marks Lord Bolingbroke, " is necessary to strengthen, and 
that it contributes to the support of government, cannot be 
denied without contradicting reason and experience both/ 1 
Again, " to make government effectual to all the good pur- 
poses of it, there must he a religion ; this religion must be 
national, and this national religion must be maintained 
in reputation and reverence. ,, The iron-hearted Robe- 
spierre, in that ever-memorable conclave which voted that 
there was no God, could boldly protest against the political 
inexpediency of the decision ; exclaiming, " If there were no 
God ; a wise government would invent one ! " Napoleon, 
according to the authority of a modern French Statesman, 
was heard on one occasion to declare : — " No society can 
exist without morals ; and there can be no sound morals 



271 



without religion. Hence, there is no firm or durable bul- 
wark for a State, but what religion constructs ; let, there- 
fore, every school throughout the land, assume the precepts of 
religion as the basis of instruction. Experience has torn the 
veil from our eyes." And of late it has become almost the fa- 
shion, even in some of our great secular assemblies, from the 
Senate downwards, to moralize in a somewhat similar strain. 

But though the necessity of morals and religion of some 
kind be now so openly and generally acknowledged, there is 
the same perverse infatuation as ever in obstinately reject- 
ing the only genuine morality, the only true religion ; — and 
that is, the Christianity of the Bible, the soul-awakening 
soul-purifying Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
To this, however, it must come in the end. When human intel- 
lect has put forth all its strength and failed ; when human 
ingenuity has exhausted all its devices in vain ; when human 
reason has stood on the terminating point of the last pro- 
montory of that shore which bounds its dominion, and has 
gazed at the outermost horizon which circumscribes the 
range of its expedients, without discovering the object of 
pursuit : — then will the spirit of universal man be driven in 
despair, if not allured by persuasion, to recoil back upon the 
only real specific, — the only infallible panacea which has 
been provided by God Himself. To talk, as many in high 
places are at present disposed to do, — to talk of resorting to 
a species of syncretism or eclecticism in religion, somewhat 
similar to that which characterised the struggles of an expir- 
ing Paganism, that would open a pantheon for the amicable 
cohabitation of the gods of all nations, — somewhat similar 
to that which characterised the death-throes of heathen Phi- 
losophy, that would amalgamate the peculiar opinions of the 
founders of all religions, and educe therefrom some depurated 
ultimate doctrine virtually comprehensive of them all : — to 
talk any longer of resorting to some such scheme as would 
thus toss the articles and confessions, the liturgies and ho- 
milies of all religionists, however heterogeneous, into one 
intellectual cauldron ; so that out of the fermentation con- 
sequent on the commingling of such discordant materials, 



272 



there might bring forth some volatilized substance which 
may be pronounced the common essence of them all ; — and 
then to propose rearing schools and temples wherein this 
etherialized decoction may be worshipped as a common idol 
by the countless throng of votaries, between the extremes 
of massive Apostolic Christianity and the unsubstantial 
shadow of leanest lankest Deism : — seriously to talk, in 
this epoch of the world's history, of any such scheme be- 
ing practicable, is an outrage to all experience, — to talk 
of it as desirable, if practicable, an insult to common sense, 
— to talk of it as an optimism, even if practicable, and to 
the carnal mind desirable, a daring affront to the Majesty 
of the Most High ! 

Seeing then that all ameliorating schemes of mere human 
devising must in the issue prove abortive, — that even if suc- 
cess should attend them up to their full measure of capacity 
for effecting good, they must still prove but poor, weak, and 
insufficient measures, which — 

" Will but skin and film the ulcerous part, 
While rank corruption mining all within, 
Infects unseen," — 

what remains, but that we should at once betake ourselves 
to that only'effective scheme which is announced and develop- 
ed in the blessed Volume of Inspiration \ And though that 
scheme has primarily in view not the physical health and 
well-being of the body, but the spiritual health and salva- 
tion of the soul, — not the petty concerns of time, but the 
momentous interests of eternity, — the slightest considera- 
tion will suffice to show how the less is necessarily involved 
in the greater ; how an adequate provision for realizing the 
felicities of heaven is the best and surest guarantee for en- 
joying the noblest heritage of happiness on earth. 

In order to be fully assured of this, let us simply ask, 
What is the central point around which the whole scheme 
of Hinduism in its theory and practice is made to turn ? It 
is, — that sinful man by his own sufficiency, his own services, 



273 



his own works, his own meritorious obedience, can propi- 
tiate God, and earn to himself a right and title to immortal 
bliss. If man really knew God in His holiness ; and God's 
law as the perfect transcript of that holiness, he would 
be overwhelmed with the conviction of his utter inability to 
propitiate his offended Maker, or fulfil the whole of His 
law. Hence, would he be filled with hatred and enmity 
against that law which must denounce, and that God who 
must punish, all transgression. Hence, too,— as he could 
not altogether shake off the impression of the being and 
providence of God ; or of the obligation of obeying His holy 
law,— he would in time be tempted and impelled to feign a 
deity like unto himself, and a divine law suited to his own 
impaired capacity of obedience ;— a deity whom he could 
appease if he willed ;— a law which he could fulfil if it suited 
his good pleasure. Hence, accordingly, the fundamental 
cause, source, and origin of Hinduism ; and of every other 
scheme of false religion. The system of Hinduism is no- 
thing else than a stupendous superstructure raised upon 
this one grand central principle as its foundation-stone — 
namely, the principle of exclusive self-reliance, exclusive self- 
righteousness— a self-righteousness far more absolute than 
that of .Roman Catholicism itself, which would combine and 
harmonize grace and desert, faith and good works. Hence, 
the countless round of daily and almost hourly rites, cere- 
monies, and observances,— the countless round of fastings, 
pilgrimages, and rehearsals of holy texts,— the countless 
round of gifts, offerings, and sacrifices,— the countless round 
of ablutions, expiations, and atonements, — the countless round 
of austerities, self-inflicted tortures, and religious suicides,— 
the countless round of inquiries into the nature of things, me- 
ditations, and absorbed contemplations;— all, all circulate for 
ever around the grand central, but false and detestable, prin- 
ciple that man, though fallen and sinful, may work out by his 
own unaided strength a title to the divine favour, a right to ce- 
lestial rewards or to supreme beatitude. The colossal scheme 
of Hinduism, as has already been shown, does embrace, and 
intimately incorporate with itself, all imaginable depart- 

s 



274 



ments of Tradition, Literature, Science and Art, — but these 
are like so many columns, capitals, and minarets, designed 
to garnish the inner citadel of self-righteousness ; or so 
many walls, towers, and buttresses, intended to render it 
more firm, secure and unassailable. 

This being the foundation-stone of the immense fabric of 
Hinduism, let us now see with what divine precision Chris- 
tianity is adapted to wrench it from its position ; overturn 
the superimposed edifice ; and drive the ploughshare of de- 
struction over the crumbling ruins. For what in the mighty 
system of Revelation, is that central truth around which all 
other truths revolve ? It is,— that not by any exertions, en- 
deavours, works, or sufferings of our own, can we ever be 
justified before God ; but solely through " the righteousness 
of God," revealed from heaven, — the righteousness which 
God Himself hath effected and provided, — the real, true, 
and everlasting righteousness, or perfect obedience to the 
divine law both in its threatened penalties and inflexible re- 
quirements, which was exemplified by Christ, our Immanuel ; 
— a righteousness which is freely and gratuitously, out of 
undeserved love and mere mercy imputed to us ; and — with- 
out money or price, doing or suffering, service or merit of 
any kind— received by faith alone ;— a righteousness which, 
when so imputed and received, is as really made over to us, 
as if we ourselves had wrought it out by a perfect fulfilment 
of the law in all its penalties and threatenings, as well as 
precepts and commands — as really accounted to be our own 
as if we ourselves had endured the infinite and eternal pu- 
nishment due to our transgressions ; and at the same time 
had magnified the law and made it honourable by a perfect 
conformity to all its demands, whether in the way of duties 
to be performed, or of prohibitions to be inviolably respected. 
The moment this perfect righteousness is,— through the in- 
strumentality of that faith which is itself the gift of God,— 
imputed to the believer, he is pardoned and justified from 
all sin; freed from the sentence of condemnation; acquitted 
of the guilt of transgression ; and entitled to " an inherit- 
ance which is incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth 



275 



not away, reserved in heaven. 1 ' No wonder that the 
bringing in of this finished, this spotless righteousness, 
should be extolled as the chief even of Jehovah's works, — 
the clear manifestation thereof, as the crowning excellency 
of Revelation, — the universal proclamation thereof, as " the 
Gospel of the Gospel,"— and the free imputation thereof to 
hell-deserving rebels, as the very consummation of Infinite 
Wisdom, Holiness, and Love ! 

What a revolution would the effectual lodgment of this 
single primal truth — " that we are made righteous before 
God, and continue so, by grace alone ; through the mere 
imputation of the righteousness or meritorious obedience 
and sufferings of Christ; the only perfect righteousness 
which can be maintained against wrath, sin, death, and 
hell," — achieve in the national mind of a people so impreg- 
nated with the spirit of self-righteousness as the native in- 
habitants of India ! And blessed be God, that in attempting 
to secure an effectual lodgment of it in the understandings 
and hearts of men, we are not left to mere human instruction, 
to mere human persuasion. No; we have the promise of the 
presence of the Divine Redeemer Himself, and of the effica- 
cious influence of His Almighty Spirit. Behold, then, how 
the believing and influential embracement of this one vital 
and fundamental doctrine would hurl away the entire mass 
of morbid fears, and legal sentiments, and meritorious ob- 
servances, which, in the course of ages, have grown up 
into a gigantic system, crushing and paralyzing the souls 
and bodies of myriads of myriads ! Let the great body of 
the people be once brought — through the word of truth, sent 
home by the energy of the Holy Spirit — to sing aloud with 
Luther, " Thou Lord Jesus art my righteousness, but I am 
thy sin ; Thou hast taken to thee what was mine, and hast 
given to me what was thine ; Thou hast taken upon thee 
what thou wast not, and given to me what I was not, 1 ' — 
and how must the all-comprehending system of Hinduism 
evanish ! An absolute confidence in one almighty, omni- 
scient, omnipresent Mediator and Advocate, would at once 
supersede the necessity of applying to any one of the legions 



276 



of secondary mediators whether on earth or in heaven. — 
Hence would the power and tyranny of the Brahmanical and 
celestial hierarchies be for ever broken ; and the constantly 
recurring demand for gifts and invocations to secure their 
favour and intercession be for ever removed. An absolute 
belief that an almighty and all-merciful Redeemer hath ac- 
tually fulfilled to the uttermost all the righteous ordinances 
of an immutable law, in the stead of sinners, — and that he 
is both able and willing to impute to them, on believing, 
his own all-perfect obedience or active righteousness, — would 
at once expose the futility of their own poor, lame, inade- 
quate self-justifying performances. — Hence would follow a 
clear perception and operative conviction of the worse than 
uselessness of the attempts to restore peace and comfort in a 
troubled, pained, and restless conscience, or to earn a hea- 
venly recompense, by resorting to the endless rites, forms, 
and ceremonies, — with all the half-gorgeous, half-barbaric 
pomps and vanities of Brahmanical worship, — and the whole 
vast apparatus of works and services of minor, secondary, or 
transcendent merit. For who, to adopt, once more, one of 
Luther's pointed expressions, " Who, that could soar with 
eagle's wings to the Sun of Righteousness itself, would not 
be rejoiced to throw his crutches away ? " An absolute 
assurance that an almighty Saviour hath actually offered 
himself, in the stead of sinners, as a complete oblation and 
satisfaction to divine justice — and that he has thereby 
drained off the full cup of merited retribution, and exhausted 
the full measure of threatened vengeance, — must lay bare 
the utter nugatoriness of the endeavour to supplant or sup- 
plement, in whole or in part, an all-perfect and freely im- 
puted passive righteousness, by any voluntary sufferings of 
their own. — Hence, at once would be swept away the bound- 
less variety of self-inflicted austerities, penances, and mortifica- 
tions, which are intended to diminish and gradually to exhaust 
the amount of penalties incurred by transgression; as well as 
the entire host of expedients designed to effect a deliver- 
ance from the purgatorial processes of transmigration in this 
world, and of penal severities in the regions below. 



277 



In this way would the Gospel of salvation at a single 
stroke, — by its one grand essential doctrine of justification 
through faith alone in the meritorious obedience and suffer- 
ings or all-sufficient all-prevailing righteousness of Im- 
manuel, — " God manifest in the flesh," — smite the stupendous 
fabric of Hinduism, and grind it to powder ; — and, over its 
scattered dust erect a temple, the foundation of which would 
be the Rock of Ages ; and every stone of which would be a 
living stone, glistening in the radiance of celestial truth, and 
tuneful with the hosannahs of seraphic melody. How differ- 
ent the Divine from every human instrument of reformation ! 
How wise, how gracious, how mighty the scheme of Divine 
appointment compared with the weak, partial, inadequate, 
temporizing expedients and devices of man ! The former 
does not, like the latter, confine itself to mere externals and 
outworks. It is not satisfied with the attempt to rectify one 
or other of the more objectionable observances of worship, — - 
to controvert one or other of the more absurd and pernicious 
abstract principles, — to uproot one or other of the more cruel 
and abominable usages, — to lop off one or other of the more 
monstrous excrescences in the forms and institutions of gene- 
ral polity, — to expose one or other of the more palpable 
disfigurations of truth by scholastic and metaphysical 
subtilties, — to reinvigorate one or other of the more debilitat- 
ed of the intellectual faculties. No : its grand aim and design 
is, to penetrate at once beneath the surface, and strike a 
deadly blow at the root of the whole mischief. And having 
extirpated the self-justifying pride, the inbred self-righteous- 
ness, — which spontaneously springs up in the soil of every 
human heart, — by the introduction and substitution of a spot- 
less, because Divine righteousness, it sweeps away the very 
foundation of the palladium of all error in theory, and of all 
ungodliness in practice. 

When once sinful guilty man has been led thus to re- 
nounce his own righteousness, with all its " filthy rags" and 
shackles and bondages of " dead works," — and has been made 
to stand erect, because accounted guiltless, in the righteousness 
of Christ, — he begins to breathe the air, and to act under the 



c 27$ 

inspiration of that liberty wherewith the truth has made him 
free. And being made free, — free from the accusations of con- 
science, the claims of violated justice, the condemnations of 
an outraged law, — free from the fear of subordinate agencies, 
celestial, terrestrial, or infernal, — free from the terrors of 
death, and the grave, and everlasting perdition, — he is filled, 
he cannot but be filled, with solid peace and consolation, 
joy and gladness ; — he is animated, he cannot but be ani- 
mated, with a cheerful boldness, an undaunted courage, a 
holy intrepidity ; — he pours forth, he cannot but pour forth, 
the song of triumph, — " If God be for us, who can be against 
us ? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth I 
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for 
us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all 
things I " 

Now, when man is thus delivered, — not merely from all the 
external constraints of a never-ending round of burden- 
some ordinances, but from all the internal constraints of 
an ever-present burden of guilt and fear,— a glow of joy- 
ous generous warmth is diffused over the whole soul, fresh 
and reviving like the radiant blush of morn. It then 
prepares to start, as it were, by a free and elastic spring, 
into hitherto untrodden paths ; and plumes its wings for 
a sustained flight into hitherto unvisited regions. No 
longer pressed down at every turn by the incubus of artifi- 
cial mechanical prescriptions, the mind uncoils itself from 
the incrustation of ages ; begins to develope its dormant ac- 
tivities ; and shoots out its emancipated energies, with hap- 
piest effect, in every direction. Then will the spirit of inquiry 
penetrate every department of human research. — The mu- 
tual rights of governors and governed ; the reciprocal bonds 
of priests and people ; the rise and progress of society ; the 
foundations of every system of knowledge, human or divine ; 
the design, fitness, and adaptation of all existing forms and 
schemes of polity, civil or sacred ; — all, all will be fearlessly 
investigated. Then will the genius of true liberty, no longer 
chained down by the fetters of despotism, spontaneously 
embody itself in free institutions. Then will the genius of a 



279 



wise economy, no longer bound to lavish its affluence in 
ministering to the " pomp and circumstance " of a lordly 
hierarchy of priests and idols, spontaneously expend its ac- 
cumulated stores in multiplying the sources of human com- 
fort and enjoyment. Then too, will the genius of literature, 
science, and art, no longer foreclosed by finding every field 
preoccupied with the erroneous dogmata of an infallible au- 
thority, spontaneously roam at large over the wide domain 
of time and space, matter and spirit. New worlds will be 
disclosed to view, and fresh illumination shed upon the old. 
And thus will Christianity, by being primarily the great 
Evangelizer, vindicate unto itself the inalienable preroga- 
tive of being secondarily the only effectual Liberator, Intel- 
lectualizer, Civilizer and Comforter of man ! 

Ought we then, in the first instance, to discourage or dis- 
countenance any direct attempts to better the temporal 
condition of the people of India, by repairing their munici- 
pal and other civil institutions, drawing forth the natural 
resources of their soil, or increasing the amount of their 
general intelligence I With solemnity of feeling we would 
reply, God forbid ! Let any and every effort of this descrip- 
tion be put forth, which the benevolence of man can devise, 
or the state of native society can admit. Such endeavours 
may be prosecuted cotemporaneously with the evangelizing 
process. All of these may be made to advance pari passu ; 
though the latter is beyond all measure the most potent in 
its operation, and the most extensive in its results. And, in 
very proportion as it succeeds, will the former be grafted 
upon the native stock, naturalized, and made to bear inde- 
pendent fruits. All that we demand and insist on is, that 
that scheme should be held as supreme, to which alone the 
palm of supremacy is due, — that that engine should be 
chiefly wielded and placed in forefront of the battle, which 
alone can win for us a decisive victory. And we now do, 
and must for ever strenuously contend, that whoever sin- 
cerely and honestly desires to see India emancipated, pros- 



perous and flourishing as regards the things of time, does 
cast away from him the only instrument which can effec- 
tually realize the very flower and fruit of his own wishes, 
when, in blind fatuity, he nauseates and spurns the blessed 
Gospel with its unsearchable riches of free grace. Greatly, 
however, as we ought to rejoice at the vast retinue of tem- 
poral amelioration which must ever follow in the train of 
a conquering Gospel ; yet ought we most chiefly to rejoice at 
the more glorious retinue of spiritual blessings which con- 
9 stitute the very consummation of its triumphs. To see hu- 
man beings, — once sunk in wretchedness and barbarism, 
whether arrayed in tattered rags or gilded with tinsel splen- 
dour, — now encompassed with a rich profusion of the com- 
forts and enjoyments of civilized life, — to see them exhibit 
in their conduct all the courtesies, decencies, and tender 
humanities of refined society,— is, no doubt, a lovely and 
cheering spectacle. But to see human beings,— at one time 
the slaves of sin, the bondsmen of Satan, and the heirs of 
perdition. — now freed from the guilt and power of sin, de- 
livered from the tyranny of Satan, and reinstalled as heirs 
of glory, honour, and immortality, — is surely a spectacle 
transcendently more beauteous and exhilarating. And were 
both spectacles combined in one, where should we find lan- 
guage to pourtray the excellencies of so glorious a combina- 
tion ? But both have been, and maybe conjoined in har- 
monious union. And the mighty power which can unite 
and realize them both, is that very Gospel which, though 
weakness and foolishness in the eyes of men, is in the hands 
of an Almighty Spirit, " the power of God and the wisdom of 
God unto salvation." So that to the blessed Gospel belongs 
in the loftiest and most sublime sense, the incommunicable 
privilege of having ' ; the promise of the life that now is, as 
well as of that which is tocome." Accordingly when,— in direct 
contradiction to all the schemes and projects of all the poli- 
ticians, economists, intellectual educationists, and liberaliz- 
ing religionists in the world —we boldly aver, that the only 
real, the only adequate, the only infallible remedy for the 
numberless evils connected with time and eternity, under 



281 



which India and other heathen lands have for ages groaned, 
is the glorious Gospel of our Lord and Saviour J esus Christ, 
we at once entrench ourselves in an impregnable fortress, — 
a fortress which has the unchangeableness of the divine de- 
crees for its foundation ; and the covenanted security of all 
the divine attributes for its bulwarks of defence. 

In this momentous conclusion, all of every denomination, 
who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth, must 
joyously acquiesce. The only question which can arise 
amongst them, or which can possibly occasion any difference 
of opinion is the great practical one, How, or in what way, 
or by what means can we most effectually communicate the 
saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified ? On 
this important subject, it affords us unfeigned pleasure to be 
enabled to introduce a passage from the pen of one of 
the most powerful and original of the religious writers 
of the present day, — a passage which expresses senti- 
ments the very same in substance with those which we 
have been reiterating, both in India and in Britain, for 
years before we met with the work which contains it. 
" The obligation, 11 remarks the author of the History of 
Natural Enthusiasm, " the obligation we are under, of at- 
tempting to convert our erring brethren to the faith of 
Christ, is not more clear than is the principle under the 
guidance of which we are to proceed in discharging the part 
assigned to us. Christian teachers wield no supernatural 
arms ; they are simply — teachers : the utmost they can 
do is to instruct and to persuade ; and in the accom- 
plishment of their task, they are bound to avail them- 
selves of all those methods of influence which experience 
authenticates, and which Christianity does not condemn. It 
is true that the conversion of men is a divine work ; but it 
is not the less the work of human zeal, industry, and dis- 
cretion ; and we are just as fully bound to use our utmost 
sagacity in the discharge of our part, as to discharge it at 
all. 

" It is certainly very proper to keep in view the abstract 
idea of preaching the Gospel, and to think of it simply as 



282 



an announcement of pardon to those who, like ourselves, are 
guilty and condemned, and yet are heirs of immortality. In 
this general view the sons of Adam, of every tribe, stand, 
without distinction, on the same ground ; and in this view 
nothing more seems to be included in the idea of a mission 
to the heathen, than the sending forth of men who, having 
themselves become partakers of the grace of God, glow with 
holy zeal and love towards their brethren, and are willing 
to make the last sacrifice in attempting to win them to the 
hope of immortality. Doubtless the whole essence of mis- 
sionary labour is comprised in this abstract idea ; nor can 
it be imagined that any who go forth in this spirit shall be 
suffered to spend their strength altogether for nought, even 
though the measures they pursue are so little adapted to 
the specific character of the work before them, that miracle 
only could give them extensive success. 

"But this elementary notion of evangelical labour assuredly 
does not include all that ought to occupy the attention of 
those who engage in the work of propagating Christianity 
among the heathen. If there are any who, from a jealous 
fear of the introduction of a secular spirit, would affirm that 
nothing ought to belong to a Christian mission but the bare 
announcement of salvation, such persons might instantly be 
convicted of a practical inconsistency ; for which of them is 
there that would not strive, in conveying religious instruc- 
tion, to adapt both his language and his argument to the 
capacity and disposition of those to whom he speaks ? Who 
would be so absurd as to exhort a child and an adult, a pea- 
sant and a scholar, to repentance and faith, precisely in the 
same terms ? None, in fact, would carry their theoretical con- 
tempt of human wisdom to this point of extravagance. Com- 
mon sense, not soon put quite to silence, leads even the most 
determined dogmatists to conform themselves, as nearly as they 
can, to the intellectual condition — to the ignorance, or to the 
known prejudices of those to whom they announce the Gospel. 

" But this adaptation of the style to the hearer contains, 
by implication, an apology for the use of all those subsidiary 
means which I have to plead for as essential to the com- 



C 2SS 



pleteness of a Christian mission to the heathen. If the ac- 
tual condition of the people we are attempting to convert is 
known — and it ought always to be known before we make 
the attempt, — then a mission to that people must include 
a peculiarity of means, that must make the outfit utterly 
inappropriate to any other destination. 

" Can any one blame this adaptation of means to special 
ends, who himself uses persuasion at all I for in doing so he 
plainly recognises the principle, that a part is assigned to 
the skill and intelligence of the agent in the Divine economy 
of salvation. Having gone so far, he can with no reason 
stop short in half measures ; or after himself using discretion 
and skill in the business of Christian instruction, find fault 
with those who employ any means, how elaborate or circuit- 
ous soever they may seem, which appear to have a tendency 
to facilitate the entrance or progress of religion. In a word, 
if Christians feel themselves bound, by the most solemn ob- 
ligation, to preach the Gospel wherever they can gain a 
hearing, they are also bound, by the very same responsi- 
bility, to bring into the service, not only their zeal and piety, 
but all the sagacity, and skill, and knowledge they possess, 
or may acquire. To contemn any probable means of ac- 
complishing their great object, is in fact to spurn the 
sanctions under which they act. If, for example, a plan 
were proposed, which should recommend itself by its obvious 
reasonableness, Christians would have no more liberty to re- 
ject it, than they have to withdraw altogether from the 
missionary enterprise. The duty of preaching the Gospel con- 
tains the duty of doing so in the best manner we are able. 

" If the work of evangelizing the nations were held to 
consist simply in finding men of devoted piety, in fitting 
them out, and shipping them away to distant shores, as the 
winds of heaven may determine ; — if the missionary work be 
nothing more than the casting the good seed at random 
over the earth, then indeed we must grant that counsel, and 
concert, and knowledge, and special qualification, can add 
little or nothing to the hope of success ; and then, those 
who are the least esteemed in the Church for wisdom, or 



284 



least distinguished by acquirements, may, as well as the 
most accomplished, assume the reins of management. 

" A few years ago, this inartificial notion of missions might 
perhaps have found a multitude of advocates among the 
pious. But the rebukes of experience have now rendered it 
almost obsolete. All intelligent and well-informed persons 
have become thoroughly convinced that, so long as our mis- 
sionaries go not forth armed with miraculous powers, they 
must encounter difficulties which can be surmounted only by 
special qualities of mind, in addition to piety, courage, and 
devotedness. It is ascertained, also, that the necessary 
qualifications of a missionary are, in part, the gifts of na- 
ture to here and there an individual, and in part must be 
the result of a long and laborious training." 

Within our narrow limits it were utterly impracticable to 
enter into the wide field which the varied topics contained 
in, or suggested by this long passage are calculated to open 
up for investigation and discussion. All, therefore, that can 
be attempted, is to offer a few practical remarks on some of 
the leading points. 

What, then, with a special reference to India, is the great 
object which, as Christian philanthropists, we ought ever to 
avow? The grand ultimate object we ought unceasingly to 
avow is, — the intellectual, moral, and spiritual regeneration of 
the universal mind ;— or, in the speediest and most effectual man- 
ner, the reaching and vitally imbuing the entire body of the people 
with the leaven of Gospel truth. Nothing short of this con- 
summation, as our grand end, ought we ever to recog- 
nise ;— and in proportion to the magnitude of the end ought 
to be the number, and variety, and energy of our operations. 
The object being thus defined, the question next arises, 
How, or by what specific means is it best to be accomplish- 
ed ?— How, or in what way can the Gospel be most speedily 
and effectually brought to bear on the entire mass of the 
people ? Looking at the history of the past, we may say, 
that by common consent, there are three generic modes of ap- 



285 



plying it. There is, first, the preaching of the Gospel to 
adults ; secondly, the teaching of it to the young ; and, 
thirdly, the translation and circulation of the Bible and other 
religious works. 

These may be regarded as the three primary measures for 
the practical application of the weapon of evangelical truth. 
Of the abstract propriety of resorting to one and all of these 
methods, no intelligent Christian has ever entertained a 
doubt. The reasoning applicable to each is as simple as 
it is conclusive. God has already given efficacy to the 
preaching of the word ; He has promised to do so to the end 
of the world ; let therefore the word be faithfully preached 
at the seasons, and in the manner best suited to the cir- 
cumstances and capacities of the hearers. God has already 
smiled propitious on the diligent prayerful training of the 
young ; He has promised always to bless such training ; 
let therefore the young receive the rudiments, and the 
more mature the higher principles of useful and religious 
knowledge, in the way which experience proves to be best 
adapted to secure the desired end. God has already blessed 
the reading of the Scripture ; He hath promised that His 
word shall never return unto Him void ; let the Bible there- 
fore be circulated in the mode most eligible, and to the ex- 
tent most practicable. Thus far, all who sincerely profess 
the Christian faith ought to be agreed. 

How unwise, then, how injurious, how almost impious is 
it, to pitch these means against each other ? — Preaching 
against Education ; or the circulation of the Bible against 
either ? — as if they were mutual antagonists, instead of 
being, what they truly are, mutual friends and allies ? What 
are they, but different methods for accomplishing the same 
end? — different modes of bringing the Gospel-instrumen- 
tality into contact with the minds of different classes of 
human beings ? Happily, on the last of these measures little 
difference of opinion has arisen among the friends of mis- 
sions ; — but how often has education been unhappily repre- 
sented as somehow opposed to the preaching of the Gos- 
pel? If, indeed, by education were meant what is merely 



286 



secular, there would be difference, — there might be opposi- 
tion. But if Christian education be meant, there can be no 
real antagonism. What is understood by preaching the 
Gospel ? Is it not to proclaim or make known Jesus 
Christ, and Him crucified, to guilty sinners as their all- 
sufficient Saviour ? If so, is not this included as an essen- 
tial part of all Christian education ? How then do the two 
differ ? As regards the subjects taught, they can differ only 
as the whole differs from a part. As regards the individuals 
addressed, they can differ only as the adult differs from the 
juvenile population. 

In every right system of Christian education, the making 
known of Jesus Christ as the Almighty Saviour of lost sin- 
ners, constitutes the most vital part of it. Around this 
central trunk may be made to grow many inferior stems, — 
protected by it and protecting each other ;— some more im- 
mediately connected, others more remote, — some germinat- 
ing from the parent tree, others springing up as a separate 
progeny some flourishing solely from the shelter afforded, 
and others rising with something like independent vigour. 
In other words, an enlarged Christian education includes, 
besides the strictly religious part, much that is merely ac- 
cessary, auxiliary, or indirectly related— though all bearing 
harmoniously on the general welfare of man. Sound educa- 
tion is a comprehensive scheme, embracing a multitude of 
parts. But one of these parts, and that the prime one, is the 
communication of the Gospel message. When a master with 
the Bible in his hands, is earnestly pressing home upon his 
pupils the necessity and suitableness of the great salvation, 
is he not doing substantially the very thing that is implied in 
preaching the Gospel \ Where then,— since it is not in the 
scope and purpose of the knowledge communicated,— where 
is the antagonism between Christian teaching and Christian 
preaching f Is it in the age of the persons addressed S Surely 
it were preposterous to say so. As ordinarily understood, 
preaching in its technical sense, has special reference to 
adults ; and teaching, to the young. But how many an exhor- 
tation in the school or lecture-room would be styled preach- 



287 



ing, if delivered from the pulpit ! How many an address 
from the pulpit would pass for teaching in the school or lec- 
ture-room ! What is the former but preaching to the young I 
And what is the latter, but an educating of the adult ? If 
in both cases the substance of what is conveyed, be the 
same; if the scope and purpose of conveying it be identical; if 
the beings addressed be all alike endowed with immortal spirits 
that are equally lost by nature, and equally stand in need of the 
great salvation, what signifies the disparity of a few short years 
in the age of the hearers 1 — and what essential difference is 
there between teaching and preaching except in the name f 
Unless, therefore, we resolve to be guided by names and not by 
things, we can no more oppose preaching to education, than 
we can oppose any one particular to the universal that in- 
cludes it, — no more than we can oppose Luther's hundredth 
psalm to music in general ; or the song of Moses to poetry ; 
or St Paul's discourse on Mars hill to eloquence. 

In this way, preaching may be said to be more limited in 
its aim and object, than education taken in its most com- 
prehensive sense. The former looks supremely to the con- 
cerns of immortality, and only indirectly to those of time. 
The latter embraces directly the interests of time as well as 
supremely those of eternity. The former regards man chiefly 
as immortal ; the latter views him as immortal too, — though 
encumbered with a material vehicle which has its wants and 
necessities to be supplied, and points out the most effective 
modes of doing so. In a word, as regards the matter of in- 
struction, Christian education is generic and universal ; 
Christian preaching, specific and particular. 

But though preaching can directly inculcate no knowledge 
save that of Christ and Him crucified — no science except 
that of salvation — it does not follow that no other topic in 
any shape or form must ever be introduced. Salvation 
through a crucified Redeemer must be the grand predomi- 
nating theme; — but, within that, may, in some form or other, 
be embraced, or around it may be made to cluster collaterally 
and subsidiarily, any really profitable theme whatsoever. In 
bringing down spiritual and celestial truth to the level of 



288 



man's opaque understanding, which is the " faculty judging 
by sense," the preacher may expatiate in quest of symbols and 
apt similitudes, over fields that have no limit save that of the 
extent of capacity and acquirement on the part of his hearers. 
He may not directly lecture on civil or natural history ; he 
may not formally expound any principle in science, or point 
out its application to the arts. — But if education has made 
his hearers familiar with such themes, there are no facts of 
observation, no discoveries of science, no results of any one 
branch of research, that may not furnish variety for the 
lightning flash of metaphor, the convictive parallelism of 
analogy, or the instructive imagery of parabolic illustration. 
This is not to degrade preaching ; but to render it more 
expansive and influential by the aids and appliances of edu- 
cation. It is not to secularize Christianity ; but to chris- 
tianize all knowledge, and convert it into a ministering agent 
in the service of the Great King. 

Far from there being any real antagonism between Chris- 
tian teaching and Christian preaching, the two in Scripture 
are not only conjoined, but used interchangeably as syno- 
nymes. If in one place it is said, " Go and teach all nations;" 
in the parallel passage, the language is, " Go arnd preach the 
Gospel to every creature." How often is it recorded of St 
Paul that he taught and preached in the synagogue ! The dis- 
tinction, and above all the contradistinction is of modern 
growth. The terms have now acquired a technical mean- 
ing. And though every exhortation to the young, and 
every evangelical address to the aged, whether in public or 
in private, be really a combination of teaching and preach- 
ing, — such and so inveterate has the distinction now become, 
that it were not surprising to learn that when it is recorded 
of Paul how he " taught and preached in the synagogue," the 
imagination of not a few would be, that he first preached a 
sermon to the adults, and then taught the young separately, 
somewhat after the fashion of our Sunday schools ! 

Protesting against the notion, that between Christian 
teaching and Christian preaching there is any real funda- 
mental difference, far less contrariety, we may, — for the sake 



289 



of convenience and the prevention of circumlocution,— employ 
« teaching " in its religious application, to denote the com- 
munication of the Gospel to the young ; and " preaching," to 
signify the communication of it to those of riper years. Then 
we say, whenever it is practicable, let us have both. Some there 
are who insist exclusively on education, — others, exclusively 
on preaching. Both are demonstratively wrong. The former 
would shut out from the means of grace, the entire mass of 
the adult population ; the latter, by an act as sweeping, 
would consign to ignorance and death the vastly greater 
mass that never reach the years of maturity. Systemati- 
cally to exclude either of these classes is wholly unscriptural. 
Ere we dare to do so, we must insert restrictive terms in 
the perfect charter of heaven itself. " Go and teach all na- 
tions, 1 ' must be read— " Go and teach the young of all na- 
tions — " Go and preach the Gospel to every creature, 1 ' 
must be read—" Go and preach the Gospel to every adult 
creature. 11 What is this but to trifle with the Bible and 
with common sense I We must, then, insist upon it, that 
to the young and to the adult— and to both alike, when- 
ever and wherever practicable,— the Gospel is to be taught 
and preached ;— and that, consequently, our apparatus of 
religious instruction, so soon as the state of things in any 
country can admit of it, should, in order to be commensur- 
ate with the real wants of man, be made to extend from 
infancy to adolescence,— from adolescence to old age ;— in 
a word, from the cradle to the grave ! 

While, therefore, abstractly and theoretically we can ad- 
mit of no limitation as to the classes to whom the knowledge 
of the Gospel ought to be communicated ; no limitation as to 
the legitimacy of one and all of the modes of dissemination 
already specified;— it is clear, that practically or temporari- 
ly there may be an untoward state of things which renders 
certain restrictions absolutely unavoidable. Thus, among 
wandering hordes of savages not one of whom can read, it 
would be absurd to circulate copies of the Bible, even if it 
had been translated into their language ;— among them, too, 
It might be equally impracticable, at the outset, to establish 

T 



290 



schools for the young. Again, in such a country as China, 
where multitudes are taught to read, but from which all 
foreigners who might educate the young or preach to adults 
are systematically excluded, the circulation of the Bible 
seems the only expedient to which Christians can, in the 
first instance, resort. And even in a country like India, 
where numbers have learned to read, and where young and 
old are more or less accessible to instruction, there may be 
differences of opinion as to the relative prominence that is 
due to the respective measures so long as society is only in 
a transition state, — the proportion of interest, and resources, 
and labour that should be lavished on each —and the distin- 
tive form which each must assume from peculiarities of cli- 
mate, locality, and government ; as well as the social, religi- 
ous, and hereditary opinions, habits, and prejudices of the 
people. At certain stages, also, of the further progress of 
society towards a more elevated state of refined enjoyment, 
the practicability of different plans which tend to accelerate 
the progression, must vary with the parts which have al- 
ready sent forth the most vigorous shoots, and the ability 
to meet efl&ciently the peculiar exigencies of each. Hence 
may arise fresh differences of opinion as to the necessity and 
expediency of modifying former measures, and as to the best 
ways of adapting these to the flux and reflux of circumstances. 
From these generalities we now proceed to offer some re- 
marks on certain leading points involved in the three great 
measures for conducting the work of evangelization, begin- 
ning with the Christian Education Scheme. 



Connected with this scheme, the single topic of incalcul- 
able importance in practice, on which we wish, if possible, 
to fasten attention, may be announced in the following 
terms : — 

Since the young, composing as they do the majority of 
every people, are destined to become the heads of families, 
and the leaders of opinion in the next generation; and, 
since a thorough Christian education must be allowed, on all 



291 



hands, to be one of the most powerful instruments in demo- 
lishing superstition and prejudice, and in training up a race 
distinguished by intelligence, and, it may be, devoted piety ; 
— what, in the present heathenish state of things, is the course of 
instruction that ought to be pursued with the clearest pros- 
pect of speedy and triumphant success \ Ought it to be 
limited in hind and in degree, so as to admit of being spread, at 
the same expense of means, over a wider surface, and rendered 
available to a greater mass of the juvenile population ? Or, 
ought it to be multiplied in kind and increased in degree ; and, 
consequently, be restricted to a narrotver sphere, and a more 
select number, with the view of ultimately and more speedily 
reaching the entire mass, through the instrumentality of 
those awakened and enlightened ? In other words, — is it 
better to pursue the direct method of attempting at once to 
impart a general elementary knowledge to the many ; or the 
indirect method of attempting to reach the many through 
the agency of the instructed few ? 

Each of these methods has had its advocates ; each has 
now been tried in different parts of India with various success. 
Judging, however, from past facts and appearances, we may 
safely aver, that till of late the friends of Christianity in In- 
dia have in a great measure, and with two or three excep- 
tions, adopted and patronized the more limited or elementary 
course of instruction — partly from its being unavoidable at 
the commencement, and partly from its apparent directness of 
application to the great body of the people. In other words, 
their efforts seem to have been chiefly confined to the general 
elementary instruction of children, or youths much below 
the age of puberty. But is this the best mode of attaining 
the great end proposed ? And are those means necessarily 
the best, which from their apparent directness of application 
may, at first view, promise to be the most efficacious ? Or, 
supposing the mode and the means to be the best and most 
practicable at the outset, does it follow that they must al- 
ways continue to be so ? As we are compelled to answer in 
the negative, it now devolves upon us to adduce satisfactory 
reasons. 



292 



Here it may be premised that, as regards any plan which 
may have for its object the direct instruction of the mass of 
the people, we must at once be struck with the consideration, 
that all the combined resources of Christian benevolence at 
present are, and must ever be, incommensurate with the 
vastness of the undertaking. This the advocates of general 
elementary instruction are willing to admit. They scruple 
not to avow, that the disproportion between the means and 
the object contemplated, is truly appalling. Yet they con- 
sole themselves with the hope, that to the extent to which 
the field is occupied, real good is effected. But what is 
this good ? What is the nature and amount ? And how 
produced I 

These are questions which, we believe, numbers of the 
supporters of Christian missions seldom think of asking 
in a scrutinizing intelligible form. And yet the importance 
of the result to which a proper answer would lead, — either as 
defending the propriety of present plans from the desultory 
attacks of some, and the systematic opposition of others ; or 
as establishing the desireableness of a change of measures 
by which a more efficient direction might be given to our 
resources in money and influence, — is enough to challenge an 
investigation. 

The truth is, that when the intelligence is conveyed that 
several schools have been organized, that large numbers of 
youth are in regular attendance, and that small portions of 
the Christian Scriptures are daily read, the good people at 
home and in India generally rest concent, — not because of 
indifference or apathy, but because of easy incurious self- 
complacency. They immediately conclude that much good 
is doing, and they are predisposed to expect still more ; with- 
out any very definite notion of what the good is, or of the 
process by which it has been, or is to be, brought about. Or 
if the subject be allowed to excite a temporary share of 
curiosity and reflection, the mind would appear to be satis- 
fied with some loose and vague notions respecting the change 
which the gift of reading, and especially the ability to read 
sacred books, must some how or other produce on the rising 



293 



generation, in the way of disarming prejudice, and creating 
a thirst after knowledge, which may eventually prove of the 
utmost advantage to the rapid spread of Christianity. Nay ! 
there often lingers an indefinite impression that those who in 
early youth have been taught to peruse portions of the Bible, 
—even though these should be perused with much the same 
kind of feeling as would be the fragments of a Puranic tale, 
and though the tuition should be conducted as it has hitherto 
been, in nine cases out of ten, under a heathen master, — must 
surely in manhood openly avow themselves followers of the 
Cross. 

That an elementary education may qualify for the com- 
mon business of a humble life— that it may, in some instan- 
ces, render certain terms familiar, which, on account of their 
strangeness, always prove repulsive to the adult or wholly 
uneducated, when addressed directly on the solemn truths of 
religion,— and that in these respects, something has already 
been achieved, may readily be acknowledged. But that any 
decided permanent change in the national intellect, any real 
diminution of prejudice or of attachment to established forms, 
or of resistance to the reception of a holier faith, can, to any 
great extent, be traced to, or reasonably expected to result 
from such a course of education, it would require a sacrifice 
of judgment to enthusiasm to believe. 

Let the matter be coolly and rationally examined ; let 
evidence be weighed ; let due deference be paid to the voice 
of experience ; let the constitution, or successions of state in 
the human mind be attended to.— Admit that thousands of 
children are initiated into the elements of education— that 
they can read ordinary books, write with tolerable ease, and 
cast accounts with creditable facility, and that much of 
what we may deem surpassing in beauty and utility, has 
been accurately committed to memory :— and what is the re- 
sult ? Is it a result fraught with benefits superior in kind 
and lasting in duration \ How much of what has been im- 
parted to the boy, at no small expense, will possess a vivify- 
ing, regenerating influence ? How much will fixedly clmg to, 
and permanently influence the conduct and character of the 



294 



man ? Generally, nothing at all beyond the artificial or me- 
chanical parts of the acquisition— nothing save the ability 
to read, write, or apply to the cases of petty dealing, the 
simplest rules of arithmetic. The boy is positively too young 
to imbibe, and the instruction received too meagre to impart, 
any vital principle which can keep even the knowledge ac- 
quired fresh upon the memory ; or can create that inextin- 
guishable curiosity which will not be allayed till the means 
of gratification are secured. And, if his own mind has not 
attained to that standard of proficiency which will be of 
material benefit to himself, how is it possible for any influ- 
ence to emanate from him that will produce the slightest 
impression on the surrounding multitudes ? 

It is unfair to judge of this subject by a reference to the 
state of things in Great Britain ; though such reference, pro- 
perty made, may aid the conceptions of those whose circum- 
stances have not enabled them visibly to perceive the differ- 



ence. 



Now, in Great Britain, what is the usual effect of a mere 
elementary education ; such as that communicated in a com- 
mon milage school I Is there any thing ordinarily conveyed, 
which, as a literary acquisition, can raise an individual to an 
eminence above his fellows, by widening the narrow circle 
within which his thoughts and sentiments would naturally 
revolve ? Or, is there any thing conveyed which can excite a 
hearty desire to pursue the study of literature and science, 
with the view of enlarging his own mind, and benefiting the 
community in which he moves ? It must be seldom indeed, we 
presume, that at a village school such knowledge can be ac- 
quired, or such ardent desires awakened. Andwhy?--because 
from the immaturity of the habit of reflection, much of what 
is read does not cleave to the mind as digested knowledge- 
knowledge incorporated, as it were, with the very substance of 
mind, and forming the staple of thought :— because from the 
meagreness of the acquisition itself viewed in combination 
with this cause, the mind does not, and cannot obtain, that 
tasting of literature and science which would inevitably in- 
sure an increasing appetite for more. 



295 



But it may be said, that in the case of the great body of 
the people there is nothing to render it an object in itself 
particularly desirable that many should attain to an intel- 
lectual superiority which might enable them to exert a per- 
sonal influence on those around — that it is quite enough, 
if, by being taught to read, they are endowed with the abi- 
lity to peruse and understand that precious volume which 
conveys the knowledge that " maketh man wise unto salva- 
tion. 11 Without at present disputing the sufficiency of this en- 
dowment in a land where the Bible is believed and read almost 
by all, let us attend to its own independent effects, not when 
left unexercised, but when cultivated with diligence and unceas- 
ing care. Let us refer to those who, with heart and soul, 
are engaged in the work of communicating the rudiments 
not only of secular but of religious knowledge to British 
youth ; and what is the constant burden of their complaint 
— the one note of lamentation, that is never out of tune ? — Is 
it not the meagre appearance of fruit as the result of all their 
devoted labours ? And what is the source of their encourage- 
ment to persevere in a task apparently so toilsome and profit- 
less \ — Is it not the hope of realizing some distant ultimate 
benefit ? Whence is this remote benefit expected to arise ? 
Is it from the sole unaided power of surviving impressions of 
early education ? Scarcely ever. It is mainly from the expecta- 
tion that individuals so taught may, in after-life, be situated 
among those whose sentiments and example, — tallying with 
instructions formerly delivered, and practices formerly recom- 
mended, — may reawaken and call forth into lively exercise 
principles of thought and action that had been imbibed in 
youth, but had lain dormant in the secret chambers of the 
soul. And it is chiefly on account of the greater facility with 
which, in such cases, sound impressions may be produced 
and deepened by the general influences that ever radiate 
from, and circulate amongst the members of a well-ordered 
and well-cultivated society, that the propriety of bestowing 
early culture however limited, is defended, and its actual 
bestowment proved to be more or less advantageous. 

If, then, in a land where every circumstance is favourable 



296 



to the growth of what is noble and generous — in a land where 
the reciprocation of enlightened opinions is free as the air of 
heaven — in a land where the sacred and civil institutions, the 
improved manners and customs, the records and traditions 
of centuries, the associations and pastimes of infancy, and, 
above all, the religious faith and observances of the people 
— all fully harmonize with the elementary knowledge, literary 
and religious, that is imparted : — and if, with these incalcul- 
able advantages, such knowledge, — apart from after means of 
improvement, or those external, social, and spiritual influences 
ivhich quicken and mature, — generally fails in producing those 
decided changes that would materially affect the individual 
himself, or ameliorate the condition of society : — who, that 
has any pretensions to a reflecting mind, may not discern 
the utter powerlessness of such elementary knowledge, liter- 
ary and religious, in operating the anticipated changes, in 
a country where that knowledge, instead of fully harmo- 
nizing, is found to run counter to all the institutions, man- 
ners, customs, habits, rites, ceremonies, traditions, meta- 
physical and religious opinions of the whole mass of the 
people ? — in a country too, where, as yet, there scarcely exist 
any of those after means of quickening latent energies, of 
developing the seeds of latent knowledge — any of those reviv- 
ing influences which issue from, and healthfully play around 
the entire fabric of a well-regulated community ? 

Will it still be objected by some, that all this is mere 
theorizing \ It may ; but we would urge, yea, beseech them 
to reconsider the matter; and see whether it be not rather a 
legitimate deduction from unquestionable facts. And should 
any doubt yet remain, we would appeal to a circumstance 
too weighty to be overlooked, and too conclusive to admit 
of evasion. Why is it that so many eye-witnesses complain of 
the littleness of visible effect arising from the institution and 
multiplication of elementary schools ? Allowing the efficacy 
which issues in conversion to be wholly beyond, and that which 
issues in mere intellectual or other temporal improvement, to 
be to a great extent, within the control of human agency, why 
do we hear so many sincere friends of the Christian cause mar- 



297 

vel, that no positive change towards a better condition of so- 
ciety has appeared from the extensive educationary opera- 
tions which have been conducted under Christian management 
for the last forty years ? Is not every expression of wonder 
on the part of those who have the means of judging, conclu- 
sive testimony as to the certainty of the fact, that no change 
has yet been effected by the operations in question, which 
bears a just proportion to the time and means already 
expended? And does not the preceding view afford the 
most natural, if not the only adequate explanation of the 
fact ? Again, we say, let the subject be duly pondered ; let 
it be contemplated in all its bearings ; let the sand-like 
character of the youthful mind be considered — its levity, its 
instability, its light-hearted carelessness ; let the meagre- 
ness of the knowledge and the insufficiency of the mode in 
which even that little is imparted be steadily kept in view ; 
more especially, let the meditative spirit dwell on the cir- 
cumstance, that whatever instruction is in the first instance 
conveyed, flows unmixed in one distinct channel ; and that 
all the feelings, sentiments, and actions of old and young, 
among the people, flow unremoved and unamalgamated in 
another channel essentially separated from the former : — 
and, instead of greatly marvelling that the aspect of society 
has not undergone more important changes, we may well be 
filled with astonishment at the want of sagacity or unreason- 
ableness of those, who could seriously expect changes so great 
and so decisive to result from causes so utterly inadequate. 
The ingredients that unite in swelling the current which 
flows in each channel, exhibit in one respect the peculiar pro- 
perty of those substances that possess no chemical affinity — 
those substances that are not only mutually distinct, but 
mutually repulsive of each other. And if it be held an ob- 
ject of importance wholly to displace that which has the 
preoccupancy, it can never be effected by the application of 
a small portion of antagonist ingredients — as these might 
float innocuously on the surface. If effected at all, the one 
must be gradually dislodged by a corresponding increase in 
the volume of the other. That, in the case of education as 



298 



hitherto generally conducted in India, this increase has yet 
been sufficient, is widely remote of the truth. For it is 
wholly incredible that mere elementary instruction, commu- 
nicated under numberless disadvantages, can ever bear any 
reasonable proportion to the stupendous mass of prejudice 
^and superstition which it is intended to remove or destroy. 

Nor is the good effected by such a limited system simply 
partial in its nature and contracted in its extent ; it is very 
uncertain in its duration. Imagine a case in our own highly- 
favoured land. Suppose that from some of those almost 
subterranean caverns in the heart of our great cities, where 
ignorance, vice, and profanity reign with unchecked do- 
minion, hundreds of youth, no matter from what motives, 
are induced to attend one of our elementary Christian 
schools :— suppose that, during the period of their attend- 
ance, they are exposed, evening and morning, at home, to 
all the brutalizing influences of unhallowed lips and profli- 
gate examples :— suppose that, after one or two years, at the 
early age of six, seven, eight, or nine, they are all removed 
from school, and again wholly shut up within the haunts of 
ungodliness and immorality ; no more accessible to the warn- 
ing voice of the teacher, or the preacher, or any Christian 
friend : — what impression could we ordinarily expect to be 
conveyed to them at so tender an age, in such adverse cir- 
cumstances, which would cling to them in after-life, in spite 
of the unopposed host of corrupting temptations, and seduc- 
tive allurements to folly, sin, and shame? And yet this is but 
a faint and feeble picture of the real condition of the great 
majority of elementary mission schools in India. Hundreds 
and thousands of children may, from various motives, be 
induced to attend ; at home they are encompassed with the 
demoralizing influences of a loathsome superstition; after an 
attendance of one or two years, they are withdrawn from 
school ; they then replunge into the dead sea of an abominable 
heathenism; are swallowed up in it; and, for the most part, no 
more heard of by those who would gladly guide them towards 
Zion. What lasting impression can, in such circumstances, be 
expected to be communicated I We are aware, that there are 



299 



occasional instances of persons who, in youth happened to 
receive an elementary education, having in riper years become 
converts to the Christian faith. But in these cases, it were 
a glaring misapprehension of the real nature of the facts to 
attribute the enlightened reception of Christianity, as an ef- 
fect, to the elementary education, as the proximate instru- 
mental cause. The lines have fallen to these individuals in 
more pleasant places. By the working of a gracious Pro- 
vidence, they have for a season escaped as it were from the 
vortex of heathen society, and, during that time, have come 
in contact with some of the people of God — and from these 
has emanated an influence which has been blessed in subdu- 
ing the souls of the wanderers to the Saviour. All such 
cases, instead of proving the inherent power of rudimental 
instruction in effecting great changes on character, only fur- 
nish an admirable illustration of the efficacy of after social 
and spiritual influences, to awaken into life and enshrine with 
the glories of true light and liberty. The real question then is 
this: — Of all the thousands of youths who have received a 
mere elementary education, how many have, in consequence, 
and solely in consequence of it, contributed in after-life 
to the diffusion of free and enlightened sentiments ? How 
many have lent a more favourable ear to the announcement 
of the glad tidings ? How many have become " burning 
and shining lights ? 51 How many would be found able and 
disposed to uphold even the present inadequate supply, in 
the event of European agents and influence being wholly 
withdrawn ? We fear that the most boundless charity would 
weep over the scantiness of the catalogue. Indeed, so long 
as there is no living principle infused to maintain life, and 
no active leaven to quicken the dull sluggish mass, things 
must in a great measure remain at once stationary, and ab- 
solutely dependent on foreign aid — aid which, from its very 
nature, must ever be feeble and precarious. And should no 
change of plans be sanctioned by the Legislative Almoners 
of Christian benevolence at home, the hands of the Execu- 
tive in India must continue bound as with iron fetters, and 
the state of mental imbecility and childhood, so far as the 



300 



cause in question shall operate, must be perpetuated from 
age to age. After the removal of a thousand generations, 
and the profuse expenditure of thousands of lives, and tens 
of thousands of gold and silver, we might look around for 
fruit, without discerning any to regale the eyes, or to cheer 
the heart \ — and even then might the sudden removal of fo- 
reign agency be the signal for a speedy and general relapse. 

This state of things suggests to us an extreme, but some- 
what analogous case. In a country wholly destitute of in- 
digenous forests, a new colony is planted. The soil is na- 
turally excellent, and by proper cultivation may be made to 
bear the most useful products of foreign climes. Among 
others, the seeds of trees of different species are transported 
and deposited in the earth ; they soon germinate and grow. 
But the country is excessively cold, and the foreign supply 
of large timber being barely sufficient for ship-building, ma- 
chinery, &c, all the young and rising plants are successively 
cut down for fire-wood ; none are allowed to attain to the 
maturity of growth that is necessary for bearing fruit. At 
length, by some rupture among the nations, or some disas- 
trous inroad of nature's elements, all supplies from abroad 
are cut off. Must not the general misery of the people be 
inevitable ? Certainly. And yet, had prudence and judg- 
ment guided their counsels, and directed their efforts, in- 
stead of a limited and precarious supply from abroad, they 
might have had numbers of seed-bearing trees that would 
soon reproduce and multiply their kind a thousandfold ; and 
at no very remote. period, meet or even exceed every possible 
demand, and thus render the inhabitants independent of all 
future contingencies. 

From the whole train of the preceding remarks, what 
conclusion ought to be drawn ? Is it not this,— That in 
present circumstances, all efforts which may be confined to 
the direct method of diffusing mere elementary knowledge 
among the dense mass of the heathen youth of India must 
be very inadequate ; and, if exclusively pursued, can entail 
little else than expense, failure, and disappointment. Hence, 
much of the unfruitfulness of the system of elementary in- 



301 

struction which, from various causes, in many respects una- 
voidable, has hitherto been chiefly prosecuted in mission 
schools ; — a system, occupying a sphere so very limited, as 
scarcely to embrace any of those higher objects, without the 
attainment of which, all previous advantages are comparative- 
ly lost, — the youthful plants, from the premature abandon- 
ment of them, not being allowed to fructify and grow into 
strength, and shoot out into the heavens their wide-spreading 
boughs. Hence the frank and ready acknowledgment made of 
late years by so many who have had the benefit of experience ; 
and the corresponding determination to bend a more special 
attention towards the indirect method of imparting that life 
and strength to the few, which will at once impel and en- 
able them to exert a potent influence over the many. Hence 
the persuasion that we ought no longer to rest satisfied 
with the thought of conferring some limited uncertain be- 
nefit, and carelessly indulge the hope of producing some 
future undefined good ;— that, after surveying the field, and 
taking reason and experience for our guides, we ought to 
confess, that to restrict ourselves to the spread of element- 
ary knowledge, is in great measure a fruitless waste of 
our time, our strength, and our pecuniary resources ; since 
any doubtful good which may be immediately produced 
must terminate in and perish with the individual. — Hence 
the growing persuasion that, since our design is to reach 
most speedily, efficiently, and permanently the great mass 
of the people, we ought openly to avow the chief means to 
be, so far as regards education, not the elementary instruc- 
tion of the youth at large, but the raising up and qualifying 
a body of special agents, whose minds, from the length and 
variety of their studies might be quickened, expanded, and 
enlightened. In every individual in whom we thus concen- 
trate the rays of a higher knowledge, we provide a new 
source whence shall emanate and diverge the rays of quicken- 
ing truth, to vivify and illume all within the reach of its in- 
fluence. And if all who are thus taught do not engage 
directly in the work of disseminating true knowledge among 
their countrymen, they cannot fail to teach extensively by 



302 



their example, — to imprint a new character on their own 
children, — and to encourage and support the adoption of 
any measures that may have for their object the diffusion 
of sound and enlarged sentiment. 

Were the friends of missions, therefore, regularly to in- 
quire, How many young men are engaged in a course of 
study in the higher departments of knowledge ? — instead of, 
How many children are receiving instruction in the elemen- 
tary schools ? — they would undoubtedly find in the answer 
to the former inquiry, by much the surer test of the present 
and prospective advancement of the Hindus. Indeed, so 
strong is our conviction on this subject, that we do not hesi- 
tate to say, that it would augur more for the real welfare of 
India, were ten privileged to receive the higher instruction, 
rather than a thousand admitted to the elementary schools. 
Do we then disapprove of the organization of schools of the 
latter description ? Quite the contrary. In the face of all 
opposition, we would again and again reiterate the state- 
ment, that, in the first instance, such schools must be insti- 
tuted. But it is one thing to assert the necessity of pre- 
paratory measures, and quite another to rest in these as an 
ultimate end. This were indeed a humiliation of judgment. 
If the condition of society be such, that few or none of the 
young are at once qualified and willing to enter on a course 
of higher study, what expedient can be devised, save that 
of opening initiatory schools, in which the proper qualifica- 
tions may be acquired I But would it indicate much wisdom 
to stop here, and expend in wasteful extravagance our re- 
sources on the subordinate object? With very limited 
means at our disposal compared with the exigencies of the 
case, we should value and support inferior schools, princi- 
pally on account of their auxiliary connection with a higher 
seminary ;— and, whenever that connection ceases to exist, 
and the elementary school forms no longer one of the nur- 
series of a superior institution, we should certainly hesitate 
to expend much on its continuance. Between the two 
grades of institution, there would be a reciprocal action and 
reaction. While the lower supplied the higher with dis- 



303 



eiplined pupils, the higher would tend to infuse new life into 
the lower. As vacancies in the former would be filled up 
by pupils selected from the latter on account of their pro- 
ficiency, this constant removal of those who distinguish 
themselves to enjoy the benefit of a superior education, 
would operate as a powerful and salutary stimulus through- 
out the entire system. Wholesome emulation would thereby 
be excited ; increased exertion would ensue ; and greater 
sacrifices would be made by parents and guardians to insure 
the regularity and prolong the period of attendance. In- 
deed, when the advantages consequent on a course of study 
in the higher institution began to be understood by a com- 
munity rapidly growing in intelligence, the requisite quali- 
fications for admission might often be exacted without our 
incurring the previous trouble and expense of communicat- 
ing them. 

To sum up the whole in a few words : — From a full and 
comprehensive view of the nature and constitution of man, 
specially as modified by the Brahmanical system ; — from the 
feebleness of impression on the youthful mind in matters 
that require abstract thought, or tend vitally to affect, and 
permanently to change the heart ; — from the buoyant rest- 
lessness of the Hindu character ; — from the obliterating and 
stupifying tendency of the countless abominations of hea- 
thenism ; — from the pressing wants and growing necessities 
of a society newly awakening from the torpor of a long and 
dreary night ; — from the lessons of a past experience, which 
present little else than a catalogue of failures to warn 
and instruct ; — from these and other circumstances which 
might be indefinitely enlarged upon, it must be adjudged 
essential, — towards securing the full benefits of a Christian 
educational course, — that, above and beyond the mere ele- 
mentary schools, separate institutions should be founded 
for the express purpose of turning the former to full ac- 
count, — for the express purpose of communicating that 
higher knowledge in every department of literature, science, 
and theology, the possession of which, with the divine bless- 
ing, naturally tends to stamp, and permanently to fix the 



304 



character, — for the express purpose of preventing many a 
promising plant from being exposed to every rude blast and 
every scorching ray, instead of being transferred to a more 
genial soil and a more kindly atmosphere, where its roots 
might spread, and its branches wave defiance to every tem- 
pest. In the present condition of the people of India, one such 
central seminary, of a higher grade, with its attendant retinue of 
preparatory gymnasia, would do more towards vitally impress- 
ing the intellect and heart of the people, and consequently to- 
wards furthering the great cause of national regeneration, than 
any number of mere elementary schools, however indefinitely 
multiplied ! 

Dismissing for the present the subject of education, we 
come to the next primary measure, or that of preaching. 
The Gospel, it has been again and again remarked, must be 
preached to the adult population. In doing so, we are not 
only warranted, but invited to look for a plentiful effusion 
of God's Holy Spirit to crown the proclamation with the 
desired increase. 

Connected with this theme, the question of vast practical 
moment, — the question of questions, — which we mean to 
start and consider, is, Who are, or ought to be the preachers f 

Making every allowance for individual opinions, occasion- 
ally expressed in written journals, or oral addresses — for de- 
sultory and ephemeral measures, or even for a few isolated 
systematic attempts, on the part of societies or their agents, 
— it cannot be doubted that, in the spirit and working of 
the modern missionary system as a whole, the reigning 
principle has generally been to look almost exclusively to 
the Churches at home for the continuous supply of superi- 
orly qualified labourers. This ought now to be regarded as 
a fundamental error. It must not, however, be imputed to 
any man, or body of men, as blameworthy. Quite the con- 
trary. It arose partly from inattention to the means em- 
ployed in propagating Christianity in past ages ; partly from 
inconsideration as to the capabilities of foreign agents, and 



305 



the peculiarities of the Heathen mind ; partly from inexpe- 
rience of the specific necessities of the field to be brought 
under cultivation ; partly from the hereditary opinions and 
prepossessions of numbers of the friends and supporters of 
the missionary cause ; and partly from the frequent impossi- 
bility of acting otherwise in the earlier stages of the evan- 
gelistic process throughout the different nations of the 
earth. 

But the time has now come when, from the calm and dis- 
passionate review of the past and present state of missions, 
we may, in reference to the source whence labourers ought 
to be drawn, be allowed to insist on the systematic adoption 
of an entirely opposite principle as the paramount one. In 
other words, instead of any longer looking solely or chiefly 
to the British and other Christian Churches not only for 
the original but the continuous supply of labourers, we ought 
now to say, Look to these Churches for the original supply 
of labourers to communicate the first impulse ; but let these 
give that shape and direction to their operations which may 
most speedily cause the field itself to send forth the continu- 
ous supply. 

Unimportant as this distinction may appear, the steady ob- 
servance of it would lead to the mightiest practical results. 
Were the latter principle to gain the ascendant in mission- 
ary counsels and plans, it would soon lead to a remodelling of 
the framework of the general system. It would furnish an 
entirely new test and criterion of the success of missions. 
Looking always to home, and dependent on it for a succes- 
sion of labourers, the prevailing object seems hitherto to 
have been to secure as many ordinary converts as pos- 
sible — to report as many in the list of baptized and com- 
municants, as possible. Now, mere numbers furnish no valid 
test of the really flourishing state of any mission. Look 
at that gorgeous exotic from a sunny clime ! How proudly 
it rears its majestic stem, and shoots out its magnificent 
foliage, and displays its dazzling hues, as if in derision 
of the flora of these northern realms ! — How it flourishes ! 
Yes ; it flourishes well in the hot-house of a botanic garden, 

u 



306 



—but can it be said to flourish well in Scotland \ No ; not 
unless it became so naturalized, that, like an indigenous plant, 
it could thrive independent of shelter or artificial heat ; and 
could maintain its native vigour, in spite of frost and snow. 
So with a mission in any heathen land ! Our eyes are turned 
to schools where the Gospel is taught,-— to chapels where it 
is preached. The spot is a Goshen in a land of moral dark- 
ness ; and, like Goshen of old, freed also it may be from the 
plagues and the pestilences that smite and destroy the sur- 
rounding multitudes. Behold, how Christianity flourishes ! 
Yes, it flourishes well in that garden, under the nurturing 
care, and vivifying warmth, of Christian missionaries. But 
can it be said to flourish in India ? No, not unless it become 
so naturalized, and have taken such deep root in the soil, 
that it can flourish and perpetuate itself, independent of 
foreign aid. That a mission has succeeded in working out 
for itself the means of self-support and self-propagation :— 
This, this is the only valid test of real permanent success ! 

Tell us of a station where thousands of ordinary converts 
are reported, but not one capable of acting the part of an 
independent propagator of Christianity, and we must say, 
that that mission, with reference to the present and more 
especially the future, cannot be said to be in a flourishing 
state. Tell us of another station, which can report no such 
thousands, but can point to a few capable of acting the 
part of evangelists— and that station we must pronounce to 
be in a flourishing state. As regards the vitality and per- 
manency of Christianity, the mission which, with the Divine 
blessing, raises up a few propagators, has done more than one 
which counts thousands who require all their own diligence, 
and the superadded vigilance of devoted foreigners, to keep 
alive the flickering spark in their own breasts. As regards 
eternity, a hundred souls are more precious than one;— as re- 
gards the intrinsic worth of a soul, that of one feeble in the 
faith is as valuable as that of any one strong in the faith. But, 
as regards the country at large, and the welfare of its inha- 
bitants, one convert strong in the faith,— able to sustain the 
life in himself, and communicate it to others,— is worth a hun- 



307 



dred or a thousand ordinary disciples. The soul of the hum- 
blest and most illiterate peasant may be as precious in the 
sight of God, as the soul of the most powerful in intellect, 
and the most advanced in spiritual gifts and attainments. 
But as regards the great interests of a realm, (say Scotland,) 
one Knox is worth ten thousand illiterate peasants. And 
the institution which might be honoured in rearing a Knox, 
would do more for Christianity and mankind, than if it 
brought ten thousand undisciplined peasants into the fold. 
The influence of the former extends far and wide in space, 
and propagates itself onwards along the roll of ages, vitally 
affecting the destinies of successive generations. The in- 
fluence of the latter might, in a great measure, be con- 
fined to themselves, and perish with themselves. In mis- 
sions, that one which is still dependent on home for labourers, 
has got no permanent footing, and is no better than a sickly 
exotic which will droop, the moment it is left to itself and 
its own inherent powers. Left to itself in such a mission, 
Christianity might, in the course of a single generation, 
decline into the feebleness of old age ; and, in the next, from 
the corruptions and interblendings of it with surrounding 
heathenism, new heresies might spring up — the foul but 
stable monuments of its short-lived reign. It is not 
enough that in any mission there should be individuals 
known under the name of native teachers, catechists, or 
preachers. For what is a name without the possession 
of some corresponding substantial reality \ To ascer- 
tain the real value of native functionaries, we must ask 
the question, — How many of these would proceed with their 
labours of love, were the vigilant superintendence, and ani- 
mating example, and stirring encouragement, and pecuniary 
recompense of European missionaries suddenly and wholly 
withdrawn ? How many would unflinchingly persevere in 
their holy calling, if wholly abandoned to themselves and 
their own resources ? Alas ! how often would a faithful 
answer to this question reduce almost to nothingness even 
the present sorry catalogue of native labourers ! But how 
can we call those native labourers really worthy of the name, 



308 



who are destitute of the mental and spiritual qualifications 
and heroic zeal which would carry them forward, supposing 
all European missionaries were removed in a day I However 
conspicuous the figure which numbers may make in statisti- 
cal columns, how can we call any mission flourishing which 
has not succeeded in raising up at least a few converts en- 
dowed with those powers, gracious and acquired, that would 
embolden them to persevere, in the face of desertion and 
danger, in an independent course of labour ? 



Leaving these generalities, we proceed next to exhibit, from 
a variety of special considerations, the necessity of making 
the rearing of qualified natives a primary, and not a second- 
ary or subordinate department of missionary labour in India. 

Supposing that the present missionary stations in India 
bore, numerically, a far greater proportion to its necessities 
than they really do, how are they supplied with agents ? Is 
the supply adequate to the demand at the stations themselves? 
By no means. For years past, in Eastern India, almost all 
the central and branch missions of the great English socie- 
ties may be said to be stationary. How is this ? Chiefly 
from the inadequate supply of European missionaries. 
There is scarcely a settlement which can, at this moment, 
afford to act on the aggressive, in effectually widening the 
circle of light into the circumjacent territory, without sub- 
tracting so much from its own limited efficiency. Few as 
are the stations that have been already formed, the services 
of even one labourer could not be dispensed with for a sea- 
son, however short, without leaving his sphere almost en- 
tirely destitute— a circumstance which, in the present stage 
of improvement, would be tantamount to a total abandon- 
ment of the work already accomplished. For it is not in an 
infantine state of things, as it is in those more highly favour- 
ed lands where vital, self-sustaining, self-propagating prin- 
ciples have long been implanted, and have taken firm and 
deep root. At home, for example, the spiritual labourer 
may retire for a season, and, returning again, may find his 



309 



work, if not advanced, at least prepared for receiving far- 
ther augmentation. In a country like India, it is far other- 
wise. At a vast expense of body and of mind the work may 
be conducted, and it may appear to progress. But let the 
workman temporarily withdraw his fostering presence, and 
speedily it is found to retrograde. Or, if the labourer be 
suddenly cut down in the midst of his career of usefulness, 
there is no one to supply his place. His coadjutors have 
their hands more than full,— their own work cannot be re- 
linquished without sustaining incalculable damage. Ere a 
successor, appointed from home, can reach the field, the 
portion which was partially cleared may have so rapidly 
relapsed into its original wilderness state, that the labour 
of spiritual husbandry must be begun anew, just as if 
little or none had ever been expended. And thus, the 
frequent removal of some labourers by death, and the 
withdrawal of others through various afflicting dispensations 
of providence, leave us too often to view, not a series of 
steadily advancing steps, but rather a never-ending alternat- 
ing series of progressions and retrogressions,— of expensive 
labour, and irremediable loss.— Just as the successive roll- 
ings of the tides of the ocean upon the shore would, in an 
unchanging rotation, obliterate all the tracings which the 
highest wisdom, combined with the most consummate art, 
could delineate upon the shifting sands. 

To enable, therefore, even the present limited stations to 
maintain an effective warfare with conterminous heathenism, 
and to become magazines of spiritual provision in the midst 
of a famishing land whence the bread of life may be liberally 
administered to the surrounding multitudes, it would be ne- 
cessary to double or treble the present number of effective 
missionaries. Accordingly, another and another solemn ap- 
peal from the field of labour is made to ring in the ears of 
British Christians, calling for help ;— demanding that more 
labourers should forthwith be commissioned to speed to 
the missionary field,— not for the sake of planting new and 
remote stations, which, by scattering strength, would weak- 
en, and by incurring certain expense and possible failure, 



310 



must prove disastrous to the general missionary cause, 

but chiefly in order to reinforce those stations at present 
established, and thus unfetter the hands of the senior breth- 
ren who may be possessed of the requisite qualifications to 
go forth more at large, and cause the name of Jesus to re- 
sound through many of those dreary habitations, where 
hitherto it has been unheard of and unknown. 

Are the British Churches prepared to respond to these 
appeals ? Judging from past experience, we should say that 
something like a genuine and extensive revival must first 
take place, — something like a Pentecostal effusion descend 
from on high,— ere we can look for a Moravian response to 
the summons. And if, in the present state of things at home 
we cannot expect the desiderated supply, must we sit down 
in despair of the farther extension of Christianity ? No such 
thing ! But ought not the extreme unlikelihood of ever 
being able effectually to provide even the present stations 
from home, induce us to think with more resolute earnest- 
ness of the expediency and necessity of raising up duly 
qualified native labourers on the spot ? 



Again, if this conclusion be suggested to us from a view 
of the insufficient supply of the present missionary stations 
in India, how resistlessly must it be forced upon us, when 
we consider the state of the country at large ! So utterly 
disproportionate is the number of the labourers to the extent 
of the field to be cultivated, that the very thought were 
enough to plunge the weak in faith into despair. In a short 
appeal for additional assistance to the Home Societies, drawn 
up a few years ago,— in the name, and printed under the 
sanction, of the united body of missionaries of all denomi- 
nations in Calcutta,— it was distinctly stated, that, owing 
to the smallness of the number of undisabled labourers, 
they were immoveably settled in particular districts, with- 
in a sphere so circumscribed, and to a desertion of the 
great body of the people so entire, as to extort the hum- 
bling confession, that, notwithstanding a few stated itine- 



311 



racies, undertaken at distant intervals of time, for a very 
limited period, and almost invariably in the same track, 
" the sound of the glad tidings had not yet leen heard in one 
out of a hundred of the towns and villages of Bengal / "—And 
this in the province which includes Serampore ! — the pro- 
vince where so many devoted men, of all the leading Chris- 
tian communions, have so indefatigably laboured during the 
last forty years. Then, what must the destitution be in those 
immense districts in which not one solitary mission station, 
has yet been planted ? 

The prospect is indeed appalling; but not at all to be won- 
dered at, when we compare the magnitude of the field with 
the scantiness of the labourers. People at home constantly 
rehearse their own doings, calculate their givings, and reckon 
up the array of their agents. How seldom do they try to real- 
ize the extent of territory to be overrun and occupied by the 
little band of missionary soldiers, or the formidable amount 
of forces opposed to them ! Really, if the English Government 
had chosen a single regiment of raw recruits, dividing it into 
little bands of triumvirates or decemvirates,— and had dis- 
persed these over the wide world, to conquer a peace in all 
the colonies, — reserving the largest subdivision, as the only 
force, to meet Napoleon's hundred thousand veteran warriors 
on the plains of Waterloo, it would not, in civil and military 
policy, be a more preposterous expedient than that with 
which many amongst us seem wondrously satisfied, in the 
attempt to reduce the anti-Christian strongholds of the na- 
tions under the banner of the cross ! 

That this is nothing in the style of burlesque or wild ex- 
aggeration, must at once appear from a statement of facts. 
And as the unknown may be best appreciated by contrast 
with the known, let us compare India with Scotland. What 
is the population of Scotland? About two millions and 
a-half How many are there, of all denominations, to pro- 
claim the everlasting Gospel \ Upwards of two thousand. 
And yet, has not the cry been of late sounded in our ears, 
that there is a deplorable destitution of the means of grace 
within our borders \— a cry which, energised by the mightiest 



3U 



living voice in Christendom, has pealed forth the alarmingfaet, 
that we are strangely nestling some of the worst horrors of 
heathenism in the very lap of Christianity. Oh ! if there were 
a tithe of the spirit of the primitive disciples in our breast, or 
even a tithe of the heroic self-sacrificing devotedness of our 
own reforming fathers, methinks that in a twelvemonth three 
or four hundred additional churches might be reared to ob- 
trude the visible symbols of our faith on the eyes, and sound 
its glad tidings in the ears of an ignorant and deluded popu- 
lace. But letting that pass for the present, how stands the 
matter as regards India ? What is the amount of its popu- 
lation ? At least one hundred and thirty millions. To pro- 
claim the message of salvation to this amazing multitude,— 
subjected in the wondrous dispensation of Providence to 
our power, and placed within reach of our address,— how 
many labourers does Great Britain supply? Why, taking 
into account those who are disabled in consequence of hav- 
ing their constitutions shattered by exertion in an unfriend- 
ly clime, and sundry other causes, there are not one hundred 
effective Heralds of the Cross I No !— including the mission- 
aries of all our great societies, Church of England, Church 
of Scotland, Wesleyan, Independent, Baptist,— there are 
not one hundred men actually engaged in proclaiming the Gos- 
pel to a population of one hundred and thirty millions /— Not 
so great a proportion for India, as would he that of two men for 
all Scotland, with its retinue of islands ! Only think of two 
preachers for all Scotland ! If, at present, with its more than 
two thousand pastors, there is so much of rampant heathen- 
ism in the land, what would have been its condition, had there 
only been two 9 — one stationed somewhere south of the Forth, 
and the other, somewhere north of the Tay ! Would not 
this be an idle mockery of benevolence— a bitter sarcasm on 
schemes of evangelization ? And yet it is the very counter- 
part of the dealings of Protestant Christendom, not only with 
India, but the world at large ! With an instrumentality in 
Scotland only proportioned to that in India, it could not, 
though already Christianized, continue nominally Christian 
for a single generation. Instead of making head against its 



313 



remaining heathenism, instead of maintaining its present in- 
adequate institutions, it would suddenly be submerged be- 
neath the returning flow of a dominant Paganism. 

People sometimes express their wonder that more has not 
been done in India. But after such a statement, the won- 
der ought rather to be that, in spite of our criminal short- 
comings, God has been pleased to work out so much through 
the institution on our part of means so preposterously incom- 
mensurate ! To overtake India even at a rate proportion- 
ed to the present occupation of Scotland, we should require, 
not a hundred, but upwards of a hundred thousand qualified 
labourers. Whence are these to come ? From home ? Why, 
unless every godly layman were suddenly metamorphosed 
into a minister of salvation — and by some awful catastrophe, 
the whole body of the faithful were driven to flee to some 
Indian Pella for refuge, as were the Jews of old from the 
city of their fathers, like stranded mariners from a sinking 
ship, — there is no reasonable prospect of obtaining the ne- 
cessary supply from home. Must we then despair ? No. But 
is not the necessity enforced upon us of resorting to some 
other practical expedient ? And what can that be, save the 
vigorous endeavour to raise up a body of native labourers to 
cultivate the almost boundless field ! 

The only plausible objection on the score of numbers 
which may be urged is, that, though as a matter of rigid 
arithmetical calculation more than a hundred thousand 
labourers would be required to enable us to parcel out India 
into manageable localities, still something far short of this 
might suffice in the first instance — and that by a system of 
itinerating, a comparatively small handful might traverse all 
India. On this subject it is difficult to speak or write with- 
out encountering a host of prepossessions which may recoil 
in a corresponding host of misapprehensions. Still the sub- 
ject is too important to be passed over in silence. What, 
then, is the very lowest grade of itinerating usefulness ? 
Surely that by which the Gospel message might be fully and 



314 



faithfully sounded in the ears of every individual, for once 
during his lifetime. To achieve, however, even this in India, 
with the numberless natural obstacles in the way of free lo- 
comotion, would require the present number of missionaries to 
be increased tenfold: — so that even this plan would force upon 
us the necessity of raising native labourers. But to what 
substantial results could such itineracy, even if fully accom- 
plished, be reasonably expected to lead ! In some solitary 
instance the good seed of the Word so scattered might fall 
on some honest heart, and so bring forth fruit unto life 
eternal and would not one soul outweigh all the trouble 
and expense of the universal though almost profitless dis- 
persion ? True. That, however, is not the point ;— the real 
question ought to be, what reasonable prospect of general 
ultimate success does that hold out ; and what test of pro- 
gress towards the reaping of a harvest of souls ? In scat- 
tering handfuls of corn over the frozen crest and towering 
eminences of the Alps or Himalaya, a single grain might ob- 
tain a lodgment in the cleft or crevice of a naked rock ; 
and there exposed to the concentrated rays of a summer 
sun, it might rear its nodding form far aloft amid a region 
of sublime sterility ;— but what prospect would that hold out 
of reaping the bountiful returns of an autumnal increase ? 

The only itineracy worthy of the name, as contradistin- 
guished from any modified form of the localizing system, is 
that^ which admits not only of universal extension, but of 
continual or frequent repetition of the same means in the 
same quarters. But an itineracy which would, in a given 
time, overtake every district of a country, leaving no town 
or village or hamlet unvisited, and no single individual un- 
aroused by the Gospel message an itineracy which would 
within brief stated periods, renew the process of infusing an 
active leaven into the sluggish mass, till inquiries began to 
be excited, and individuals here and there were discovered 
in whose souls the Lord had commenced a work of grace, and 
eventually whole districts found ready, at the sound of the 
Gospel summons powerfully proclaimed by the living voice, 
to awake and shake off the spiritual despotism which ages' 



315 



had confirmed— such an effective itineracy would require 
the present number of missionaries increased a hundredfold. 
Hence, again, the enhanced demand for native labourers. 

Our object is not to condemn the itinerating system, but 
to point out the necessity of perfecting it ; till, by progres- 
sive advances, it may become identical with the localizing sys- 
tem. The vast superiority of the latter over every other in 
point of efficiency, solidity, permanency, and pervasiveness, 
has been demonstrated by a redundance of evidence, by the 
most eloquent of living men. And if, in a land where not 
one in ten with whom we meet is other than a friend, this sys- 
tem has been proved to be fraught with the mightiest momen- 
tum of aggressive power as regards existing heathenism, and 
the mightiest vis inertia? of conservative power as regards ex- 
isting Christianity, how much more must it be so in a region 
where not one in a hundred with whom you meet is other than 
a determined foe I If many of the current views on the subject 
of missionary itineracybe correct,most of Dr Chalmers's state- 
ments and reasonings are fallacious. But believing his conclu- 
sions to be as legitimately established as any proposition in 
the ancient geometry, we would only labour the more inces- 
santly, and pray the more earnestly, that measures might be 
devised for accelerating the transfer of the Indian and every 
other heathen field, from the itinerating to the localizing 
system. At present, when men, fired with holy zeal, behold 
such multitudes in peril of perdition, and so few to rescue, 
they are tempted to itinerate any where and any how. In 
the gush of generous philanthropy they are hurried to and 
fro through the glowing desire to snatch as many brands as 
possible from the burning :— though, alas ! in this case it 
too often happens, as in the rending of an ice-floe, or the 
stranding of a ship, that the able and the willing, in attempt- 
ing to save too many, suffer all to perish,— crowning the 
noble but ineffectual effort with no other trophy than the 
cenotaph of their own uncelebrated obsequies. 

While there is not an argument employed to evince the su- 



316 

periority of the localizing to theitinerating system, in a landof 
almost universal Christian profession, which does not apply 
with tenfold greater force to a region of almost universal 
idolatrous profession, there are in the latter case, besides 
the general reasons founded on the Catholic principles and 
attributes of humanity, special additional considerations 

The climate of India greatly militates against a svstem of 
effectual continuous itineracy. For several months the heat is 
all but insufferable for in-door labour; and absolutely un- 
endurable for active operations, on anv extensive scale 
abroad. For several months more, during the prevalence 
of the monsoons, free intercourse, in most parts, is well-ni»h 
impracticable. In Eastern India, as much rain falls in three 
months as in GreatBritain in three years. And on manv parts 
of the western coast the fall is more than double that amount 
Most of the plains and valleys are in a great measure un- 
der water. The lower part of Bengal.-the largest, most fer- 
tile, and most populous of all the provinces.-is for three or 
four months converted into an immense lake. The grove* 
of bambu tamarand and palm-trees seem like the green 
summits of subaqueous forests; and the villages, reared on 
low earthen mounds, look like floating islets of cottar 
The natives pass and repass through the flooded paddy- 
fields, seated one at each extremity of a long scooped-out 
trunk of the cocoa-tree. Open and free exposure to »uch 
extremes of heat and steaming vapour, the inhabitants of 
northern climes can never endure with impunitv. With scarce- 
ly any exceptions, those who have maintained and endea- 
voured to practise the theory, that by certain experimental 
efforts and tentative encroachments, thev might, through a 
long series of approximations, at length reach the standard 
of perfect assimilation with the climate, have uniformlv fail- 
ed. JNot a few have in consequence been cut down at the 
very threshold of a splendid career of promising usefulness : 
and they have fallen prematurely just in proportion to the 
extent f hberty they began to assume in braving the haz- 
ards of unmodified exposure. But what the European can- 
not, dare not, as the general rule, attempt, the natives of 



317 



the soil may :— Hence, again the necessity of resorting to a 
qualified native agency, if it be our design rapidly to over- 
spread and permanently to occupy the land. 

In Bengal, such are the physical difficulties, that the stout- 
est advocates of the discursive itinerating system never 
dream of attempting to carry it into practice beyond three 
or four months in the year. Now, suppose a place were 
visited once every year, or even oftener, during the itinerat- 
ing season, what is to become of it throughout the remain- 
ing eight or nine months ? Suppose the deepest impression 
had been produced, how much will remain of it at the end 
of nine months of all-absorbing secularity ? If, even in 
Scotland, an isolated parish, far removed from the ministra- 
tions of any neighbouring charge, had sermon preached in 
it only once or twice in a twelvemonth, and for nine months 
every year, no sermon at all, — with no resident believer quali- 
fied to address his friends, either in public or in private, — 
could such a parish be, by such means, thoroughly Christianiz- 
ed ?— or, if Christianized already, could it be saved from a 
relapse into Paganism ? To say that, once on a time, at a par- 
ticular place, a listening audience has been secured, and a 
powerful impression produced, is to say little or nothing. 
Even in this Christian land, on a subject respecting which 
many of the audience may be deeply interested, and none 
perhaps opposed, let the deepest impression be made ; and, 
unless vigorously followed up by subsequent systematic reitera- 
tion in every shape and form, how long will it survive ? Is 
it not as notorious as that yesterday the sun must have risen 
in the firmament, that such an effect must, generally speak- 
ing, prove ephemeral if not instantly and perseveringly fol- 
lowed up ? How much more must this be the result in a 
case wherein the subject-matter of address may be uninvit- 
ing to all ; and specially loathed and detested by the most 
influential of the people ? 

Tell us that, in a particular spot, a deep impression 
seems to have been produced: tell us that,— instead of 
waiting to ascertain whether such impression has been real, 
or sand-like, or apparent merely ; or whether, if the mere 



318 



effervescence of curiosity and novelty, it can be made to ter- 
minate in a reality, — you went away, when the fervour 
was at its height ; and if shallow, required most to be deep- 
ened ; and if real, required most to be rightly directed and 
regulated. Tell us that then you hastened off to produce the 
same impression somewhere else,— an impression as speedily 
to be abandoned to the impulse of every wayward accident, 
and the breath of every passing breeze,— and what really sa- 
tisfactory result has been attained ? Or, suppose you never 
return again, as is often the case, what has been gained ? Or, 
suppose you do return in a twelvemonth, and find that while 
many remember your having been there before, the majo- 
rity only remember your presence as untowardly associated 
with a thousand nameless misconceptions, in regard to your 
doctrines and designs, what advantage has been reaped \ 
You may succeed in renewing the former impression ; and it 
may be that hasty opponents, learning caution from ex- 
perience of defeat, may be more wary in their renewed 
attacks. Well, what of all this, if, comet-like, you only 
blaze on them for a moment, and then leave them plunged 
into deeper darkness than before ?— Part of an invading 
army is sent from the main body to attack a citadel ; they 
succeed in beating back a sally from the garrison, and 
in effecting a breach in the outer bulwarks ; but the mo- 
ment that an impression has begun to be made on the be- 
sieged, the assaulting party retire. Flushed with the glori- 
ous achievement, they rush back to head-quarters to report 
what an impression has been made. After some months or 
years, they are again sent to take possession of the fortress. 
To their amazement, they find that the breach has, in the 
interval, been thoroughly repaired ; and rendered, if possible, 
stronger than before. The attack is accordingly renewed, 
and the breach has again been made— made, perhaps, more 
easily than before, because, having learnt prudence from ex- 
perience, the besieged resolved not to diminish their num- 
bers by any more rash, unpromising saUies. But, instead of 
vigorously pushing on the advantage gained, the assailants 
hie back to the main army, to rehearse their fresh success ;— 



319 



adding, moreover, how overawed the besieged had been, 
because they did not venture, as before, openly to issue forth 
to attack them in the open field. Thus, year after year, 
the attack may be renewed, and the report brought back of 
similar success. In the course of a century, there may be 
a succession of a hundred attacks, a hundred breaches ef- 
fected in the outer ramparts, and a hundred reports of the 
wondrous exploits ; — and at the end of the hundred years, 
the fort may be as nearly on the eve of capture and sub- 
jugation as at the beginning ! So it may fare with the 
scheme of occasional or unfrequent itineracies, — when never 
followed up by permanent ministrations. Their history may 
consist of a monotonous record of deep impressions once 
made and, it may be, annually renewed — deep impressions, 
but no real conquest, either temporary or permanent. 
Hence it is that nothing can well be more unsound or un- 
safe than to adopt a certain platform calculus ; and, by an 
assumed and arbitrary equation, measure the amount of 
good effected by the number of isolated impressions re- 
ported in the narrative of a long itineracy. 

This is not all. It is not merely that occasional im- 
pressions, altogether remote from the daily current of human 
thought and feeling, must, in the overwhelming majority of 
instances, prove fleeting and unstable, — terminating in little 
or no real and lasting good. In a heathen country like In- 
dia, should transitory visitations leave at any time behind 
them some seeds of truth, which, in individual cases, may 
fructify, — has the grave, the momentous consideration been 
sufficiently attended to, namely, that unintentionally there 
may be also implanted the seeds of much positive evil, which, 
sprouting with the tropical rapidity so characteristic of the 
growth of error, may inflict essential damage on the best of 
causes ? 

Let us draw one illustration of this from the medium of 
instruction. That medium is, of course, foreign to the Eu- 
ropean itinerant. Now let us suppose, — what cannot be al- 



320 



leged in favour of one out of ten,— that he has a perfect 
mastery over the provincial dialect ; as well as an intimate 
acquaintance with human nature in the abstract, and human 
nature as modified by Hindu institutions. The dialect may 
contain no analogous terms to express some of the more spiri- 
tual doctrines of Christianity. If not, foreign terms must 
be introduced ; or new ones coined ; or equivalent ones bor- 
rowed or compounded from the Sanskrit. In either case, 
how formidable the difficulty presented at the very outset of 
the process of instruction ! And yet that difficulty, in the 
case of a people immersed in grossness,— supersaturated with 
sensuousness,— is proposed to be overcome in the course of a 
single address ! Or suppose terms somewhat analogous to 
exist, it may scarcely ever happen that these are identical 
m import. If not, the confusion and intricacy, instead of 
being diminished, may even be enhanced ;— as it is often far 
more easy to introduce a new term as the vehicle of a new 
conception, than to detach from an old term the idea to 
which it has once been wedded. On this subject we appeal 
at once to theory and to universal experience. We appeal to 
all,— who in the hey-day amusements of youth, have employed 
certain terms in connection with the jovial, the frolicsome, 
or the ludicrous,— whether, in riper years, the recurrence of 
the terms does not always insure a recurrence of the early 
associated ideas— so as to prove like discord to the harmony 
of sage discourse ; to detract from the gravity of venerable 
usage ; and even painfully to tumultuate the very exercises of 
devotion ? We appeal to all— in whose minds the various 
professions and the ten thousand events and contingencies of 
life have produced casual associations with terms that are 
wholly alien to the terms themselves— whether the same dis- 
turbing influences have not been experienced ? Apart al- 
together from such inveterate associations, we appeal to all 
judges and pleaders, to all preachers and teachers, to all lec- 
turers and speakers, in public and in private— to all, in 
short, who have exerted any degree of discrimination in 
their intercourse with their fellow-men, whether, even in 
cases where there is a community of speech— a reciprocity 



321 



of information, — an intercommunion of sentiment, the same 
notion may not often be enunciated by the speaker in one 
sense, and understood by the hearer in another? — And 
whether this does not repeatedly happen in cases where the 
party addressed may be earnestly anxious to be enlightened 
and improved ? 

If thus it be at home, what must it be in a region like India ? 
— where the audience may be not only wholly ignorant of the 
subject of discourse, but wholly disinclined to its announce- 
ments, and more or less intolerant of its proposed results ? — 
where, moreover, there may be no natural community of lan- 
guage, nor parity of general knowledge, nor congeniality of sen- 
timent I Above all, what must it be, where almost every term 
in the entire vocabulary of theology, is preoccupied and ap- 
propriated to the embodiment of some idea altogether foreign 
to the genius and spirit of Christianity? — where every reli- 
gious term is linked to what is erroneous in faith, idolatrous 
in worship, blasphemous in principle, or abominable in prac- 
tice? — and this too, not from the casual association of 
youthful pastime, nor the incidents of professional engage- 
ment, nor the fortuitous coincidences of accident and adven- 
ture, — but, from the systematic training of youth and the 
inveterate habits of manhood, the opinions of the head and 
the preferences of the heart, the immemorial usage of an- 
cestors, and all the heart-stirring recollections of ages of 
glory and renown ! Take one or two examples as an illus- 
tration of the difficulty. Talk to the idolatrous Hindus of 
sin — endeavour to convince of sin, that you may convince of 
righteousness. Sin is a term of familiar occurrence. But 
though freely used by both parties, what a discrepancy be- 
tween the ideas of which it is the common emblem ! When 
you mention sin, yours is the divinely revealed idea. But 
what can the use of the term suggest to the minds of the 
hearers, except the idea with which, from infancy, it has 
been associated as symbol and representative? Will the 
utterance of a familiar sound from the lips of a stranger, 
all at once transfuse the new or additional idea which may 
be latent in his breast ? Impossible. The enunciation of 

x 



322 



the term will at first naturally and inevitably excite in 
the hearers' mind the very notions — and none other — to 
which they have all their days been accustomed. And 
what are these \ Wliat is sin ? Probably the sin most rea- 
dily suggested, will be that of touching something unclean, or 
partaking of food that has been handled by one of an- 
other caste, or some other imaginary offence still more fri- 
volous. Talk of the necessity of the soul's being cleansed from 
all sin ; — and the process of purification suggested, will be 
that of ablution in the Granges or some other sacred stream. 
Tell them that without holiness no one shall enter the 
kingdom of heaven ; — and the impression conveyed, will be 
that without meritorious virtue, or that excellence which re- 
sults from the performance of works of merit, or the endur- 
ance of ascetic mortification, it is impossible to ascend into 
any of the heavens of the gods. Proclaim the doctrinal 
fact, that the soul is now far off, alienated, or separated 
from God ;— and their own notion will be apt to be con- 
firmed that the soul is an individualized portion of the Su- 
preme Brahm, temporarily severed from his substance and 
confined within the bonds of a material frame. Dilate on 
the necessity of the soul's being again brought to God, and 
of being united to him by a true and living faith, in order to 
the enjoyment of perfect bliss ;— and you will be understood 
as enunciating the fundamental doctrine of their own Pan- 
theism ; that to secure final beatitude, the soul must, by 
firm unshaken devotion and intense abstract contemplation, 
be reunited with the essence of the Supreme Spirit. Expatiate 
on the joy* of heaven and the mind will at once be filled 
with the endless round of sensuous enjoyments which, in their 
system, constitute celestial bliss. Discourse of the Divine 
Being,— employ the ordinary term for God, — and the 
thoughts of the hearers will be thrown adrift among a mul- 
titude of imaginary, false, and subordinate divinities.— To 
guard against misconception, prefix or substitute an ap- 
pellation, expressive of some lofty attribute, such as un- 
controlled power and dominion,— and instantly will the at- 
tention be directed to one or other of the supreme gods, who, 



323 



in a pre-eminent sense may be the depository of that at- 
tribute.— To banish the possibility of such polytheistic 
confusion, seize at once on that term which is the incommu- 
nicable designation of the Divine Being, as contradistin- 
guished from all other gods, superior or inferior,— and 
instantly you suggest the pantheistic conception of the 
Supreme Spirit, as the emanative fount and universally mo- 
dified essence of all other existences. Come to some doctrine 
which you believe to be peculiar to Revelation; tell the 
people that they must be regenerated or born again, else they 
can never " see God." Before you are aware, they may go 
away saying, " oh there is nothing new or strange here ; 
our own Shastras tell us the same thing ; we know and 
believe that we must be born again ; it is our fate to be so." 
But what do they understand by the expression I It is that 
they are to be born again and again, in some other form, 
agreeably to their own system of transmigration or reiterated 
births. To avoid the appearance of countenancing so absurd 
and pernicious a doctrine, you vary your language, and tell 
them that there must be a second birth,— -that they must be 
twice bom. Now it so happens that this, and all similar phra- 
seology, is preoccupied. The sons of a Brahman have to un- 
dergo various purificatory and initiatory ceremonial rites, 
before they attain to full Brahmanhood. The last of these is 
the investiture with the sacred thread ; which is followed by 
the communication of the Gayatri, or most sacred verse in the 
Vedas. This ceremonial constitutes, " religiously and me- 
taphorically, their second birth f henceforward their dis- 
tinctive and peculiar appellation is that of the twice born, or 
regenerated men. Hence it is that your improved language 
might only convey the impression that all must become per- 
fect Brahmans, ere they can " see God 1 — a doctrine to which 
they would at once assent, inasmuch as none except those who, 
through the course of transmigration, rise to the exalted grade 
ofperfectBrahmanhood,canattainto that "divine knowledge" 
which is essential to a reabsorption into the Supreme Spirit. 

But why multiply examples \ These are sufficient to illus- 
trate our meaning, when we declare that every native term 



324 



which the Christian missionary can employ to communicate 
Divine truth, is already appropriated as the chosen symbol 
of some counterpart deadly error, — and that to sever these 
terms from meanings and associations which have been in- 
stilled from infancy, and rendered venerable by the usage of 
an immemorial antiquity, — converting them into the vehicle 
of pure and spiritual conceptions, wholly alien to the thoughts 
of a sensuous superstitious people,— must be a task of no 
ordinary difficulty. Indeed, we consider this as one of the 
greatest, if not the very greatest, of the more immediate 
difficulties with which the Herald of the Cross has to con- 
tend, when addressing an adult audience of Hindu idolaters. 
And yet, strange to say, though this be a difficulty which 
those who have most narrowly scrutinized the workings of 
their own and other men's minds, will ever be the readiest to 
pronounce as most formidable,— it is perhaps the difficulty 
which of all others has in practice been least considered,— 
least weighed, — and least effectually provided against ! 

What is the drift of the preceding remarks \ Is it to 
pour contempt on all itineracy ? Is it to discourage preach- 
ing ? God forbid ! It is simply to reduce the former within 
its proper dimensions : it is to lead to a system which may 
render the latter not a name, a mockery, nor a phantom,— 
but a reality, a power, and an efficacy. When the preacher^ 
by his address, may have raised misconceptions ; — when, 
through ignorance, prejudice, habit, and early association, 
the noblest truths may be merged into the most detestable 
errors— the most marvellous facts into mythological fables ;— 
when the sublimest theism may be transmuted into an athe- 
istic pantheism,— the sublimest doctrines into the grovelling 
forms of idolatrous belief,— and the purest practices into the 
enslaving round of degrading superstition— what is the re- 
medy? Or is there any? There is,— and it consists in fre- 
quent, patient reiteration ; accompanied with varied explan- 
ation, similitude, illustration, and argument. But, for this 
the mere itinerating system can make no adequate provision. 
In order to insure so indispensable an end, there must be a 
fixed and stationary ministry. In other words, the localising 



325 



system must be brought into full operation. Such a system 
efficiently conducted, would at once demand tens of thou- 
sands of labourers. And this again lands us in the ne- 
cessity of resorting to natives, in a way more efficient, and 
to an extent vastly greater than has ever yet been contem- 
plated. Will this be denounced as innovation? Inno- 
vation ! Why, it is only to seize the lyre of experience, 
and sweep it with the finger of common sense. We plead 
for itineracy ; we plead for preaching. All that we insist 
on is, that both should, if possible, be perfected. How 
we long to see the day when both may be so effectually 
combined, as to lead to a universal process of productive 
and permanent localisation ! How glorious,— if really en- 
dowed with the requisite qualifications, and having at our 
disposal and appointment numbers of native teachers and 
preachers — how glorious to traverse the whole land as 
preaching itinerants ! Wherever inquiry might be excited, 
or impressions made, there would we localise a missionary 
to stimulate the inquiry, heighten the impression, and in 
every way which wisdom could suggest, or experience con- 
firm, follow up all the advantages already gained. Then 
would we pass on to another city or district ; and there 
would we, if favoured in like manner with increase from on 
high, repeat the same process. And after a circling series 
of stations had thus been planted within reach of concert 
and co-operation, how cheering would it be to return and 
revisit them all— strengthening and confirming the churches ! 
This, this would be itineracy of the right stamp,— an itiner- 
acy which might not only diffuse, but perpetuate the leaven 
of Christian principle throughout the land ! 

Apart altogether from the demonstrable argument of 
numbers in proof of the necessity of raising a supply of na- 
tive teachers and preachers, there are other considerations, 
some of primary, and others of secondary importance. With- 
out any special regard to classification, we shall here briefly 
advert to a few. 



326 



When we think of the vast extent of territory to be over- 
taken, and the tens of thousands required for the task, is it 
wise to overlook the economical part of missionary statistics? 
Other things being equal, must not that system be prefer- 
red, which contemplates the Christianization of India at the 
lowest pecuniary expenditure I In accelerating that longed- 
for result, is it nothing that an effective native agency may 
be maintained at a fifth or sixth part of the expense of a 
European agency of corresponding efficiency ? If five or six 
preachers can be supported in place of one, may we not 
hope that the means of Christian influence will be diffused 
and multiplied at a rate five or six fold greater ? And 
would not this alone do much towards turning the balance 
in favour of native agency ? 

Again, the missionary who desires to labour with real 
effect in impressing the adult population, ought to be ena- 
bled so to exhibit his entire mode, habits, and tenor of life, 
that, in his daily walk and conversation, — in his outgoings 
and incomings,— in his domestic and social dealings,— he 
might be observed and marked by all around ;— that, in this 
way, the preaching of his lips might be enforced by the ten- 
fold more efficacious preaching of a holy, harmless, and irre- 
proachable example, " seen and read of all men." Now, 
it requires little reflection to perceive, that in the way of 
fully attaining this grand object, a barrier is interposed 
by the exotic manners and habits of European mission- 
aries. This holds true, more especially, of those modes of 
living to which experience has compelled the inhabitants of 
a northern clime to resort;— not for the sake of comfort— for 
that is a commodity which, in the British sense of the term, 
is unknown in tropical climes,— but simply to insure some 
portion of health and efficiency for the discharge of necessary 
duties ;— not for the sake of enjoying the fabled luxuries of 
the East,— for what would be luxuries at home, can there be 
only said to be so many artificial contrivances to obtain 
some abatement of positive suffering,— so many ingenious 
expedients, not so much to render life pleasurable, as to 
make bare existence possible. All such manners, habits, and 



327 



modes of life,— of the precise nature and influence of which 
even a multitude of details would scarcely suffice to convey 
an adequate conception to those who have never been in 
India, — do more or less tend to raise up a wall of separa- 
tion between European missionaries and the natives, — so 
that the former can seldom let the full light of their example, 
however holy, shine upon the latter. This, it must be con- 
fessed, is a prodigious disadvantage and obstruction to the 
rapid spread of Christianity. In primitive times, it was the 
burning and shining example of purity and holiness, on the 
part of the disciples,— contrasting with the blackness of 
heathenism, as the radiance of sunshine with the gloom of a 
cloud in which the tempest sleeps,— that carried Christianity 
in triumph from the lowly hamlets of Galilee to establish for 
itself a residence in the palaces of imperial Rome. And until 
such an example be made visibly to obtrude itself upon the 
mass of the adult population of India, we can scarcely expect 
that Christianity will finally supplant the bloody sacrifices 
of Durga and Kali ; or annihilate the abominations of Jug- 
gernath. Who, then, are to set this perfect example, in all 
its parts and details ? The disastrous results of past experi- 
ence, and the adverse testimonies of general practice, seem 
to proclaim, " Not the European missionaries. " Must we 
therefore be driven to the alternative, that it is not to 
be exhibited at all I Surely not. What the Europeans, 
from physical incapacity and other causes, are found unable 
to achieve, qualified natives may. Thus the necessity of 
rearing a superior native agency is again forced upon our 
view. 

Once more, in order thoroughly to impress a native audi- 
ence, it is indispensable that the preacher should possess a 
free and fluent command of the vocabulary and idiom of the 
language ; — a power of enunciating vernacular terms in ver- 
nacular tones and accents ; — and, above all, an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the habitual trains of thought and secret 
links of association, — the currents of feeling and the im- 
pulses to action, — the modes of conceiving the visible and 
invisible, and the ready and familiar storehouse of illustrative 



328 



imagery. Now the perfect acquisition of such endowments 
is, of all attainments not absolutely impossible, the least 
practicable to a foreigner. It supposes a length and breadth 
of thoroughgoing social intercourse, —a height and depth of 
intercommunion with the secret springs of intellectual and 
moral nature under new and strange modifications,— which 
it is scarcely conceivable how one in a hundred can ever at- 
tain. In its absolute entireness, it seems incommunicable. 
After one, two, or three years, one may be enabled to 
wield a tolerable mastery over the language. He may then 
preach; but if it be in the style to which he was accustomed 
at home, he may, in general, as well preach to the winds. 
In order to preach with effect, he must have the new experi- 
ence referred to. This implies not merely the study, but 
the personal observation of years. Suppose, then, that after 
four or five years, one has gained not only a command of the 
language, but a tolerable power over the flexible trains 
and modes of thought,-what next? In all probability, 
the grave ! Just as he is ready to preach with some pros- 
pect of success, he is cut down. It is a notable fact, that 
the larger portion of all the missionaries ever sent to India 
have fallen or been disabled within the first six or seven 
years of their sojourn ! This is no vague assertion. The 
simple statistical record shows that, after subtracting 
about half-a-dozen of extraordinary long lives, the average 
amount of missionary life in India does not exceed six or 
seven years ! In other words, even supposing all the quali- 
fications have been secured, the greater part are cut down 
before they have been enabled to employ them at all ; and 
the larger moiety of the remainder, before they have done 
httle else than enter effectually on their labours. Would 
not this fact alone go far to prove that they are not Euro- 
pean missionaries who seem destined to do the great work? 
-thus again shutting us up to the necessity of a native 
agency ? And is not this conclusion enhanced prodigiously 
when we consider that most of the foreign agents could never 
obtain the requisite qualification at alH_no, though they 
snould live not seven years, but seventy times seven ! 



329 



Is not the same lesson enforced by the analogy of Provi- 
dence in the history of the past ? Where is there an in- 
stance of any great reformation of the prevailing national 
faith and manners, in any country, having been achieved, 
except by a native or natives \ Look at the great legisla- 
tive and religious reformers of the east and of the west — 
of China and India, Persia and Arabia, Greece and Rome. 
Look at the history of Christianity itself. Whom did God 
select to preach the Gospel to the people to whom pertained 
" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the 
giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises V 
Individuals who were of the seed of Abraham. And since to 
that favoured people had been confined for ages all the privi- 
leges of the everlasting covenant, was there not a Divine suit- 
ableness in causing the new era of the universal extension of 
these to Gentile nations, to be ushered in by members of that 
holy brotherhood ? Was it without Divine foreknowledge and 
design, that the prime Agent employed in executing this 
commission should unite in his own person all the leading 
characteristics of Jew and Gentile ? Was it without Di- 
vine significancy and intent that Saul of Tarsus was, on the 
one hand, by birth, after the strictest of Jewish sects, a 
Pharisee, and by education of the school of Gamaliel; — and, 
on the other hand, by birth, a citizen of Rome the imperial 
mistress of the Gentile nations, and by education initiated in- 
to all the learning of the Gentiles ? Was this most rare and 
singular combination of endowments the result of fortuitous 
coincidence \ Impossible ! In it we may distinctly read part, 
at least, of the Divine purpose. It was this combination 
which peculiarly fitted Paul for the lofty office and distinc- 
tion of being, by way of eminence, the apostle of the Gen- 
tiles. It was in consequence of this that he was enabled, to 
the Jews so thoroughly to become a Jew, and to the Greeks 
so thoroughly to become a Greek ; — to place himself, as it 
were, in the identical points of view — however opposite and 
contradictory — from which Jews and Greeks surveyed the 
past the present and the future, as connected with the em- 
pire of spirit, and the destinies of individual souls. Hence 



330 



that wondrous versatility without compromise, — that un- 
matched applicability and adaptedness without conformity, 

which distinguished all his reasonings and appeals, whether 
before the Jewish high priest, or the Roman governor,— 
whether in the Sanhedrim at J erusalem, or the Areopagus at 
Athens. 

Look again to the great Reformation in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Were not the Reformers of every kingdom in Europe, 
natives of the kingdom reformed ? Had not Germany its 
Luthers and Melancthons ?— Switzerland, its Bezas and Cal- 
vins ?— England, its Cranmers and Ridleys ?— Scotland, its 
Knoxes and Melvilles t Suppose a transfer and exchange in 
any of these cases. Suppose, for example, that he whose 
voice, once raised in the centre of Germany, shook the 
Vatican,— dissolved antichristian confederacies,— and in its 
echoing responses has since reverberated round the globe ; 
—suppose that even the mighty Luther himself had landed 
on our Scottish shore :— think you that between his com- 
parative ignorance of the minute idioms of our tongue, 
and comparative inacquaintance with the national and pro- 
vincial peculiarities of the people :— think you that even he 
could have become the Reformer of Scotland \ All analogy 
is against the verification of the supposition, unless he were 
miraculously endowed. No ! It pleased that God who never 
has made a superfluous display of supernatural power,— never 
wrought miracles where the application of ordinary means 
would have sufficed ;— it pleased Him to raise up and qualify 
one born, and nursed, and cradled in the midst of us,— one 
who, from infancy, had caught the national spirit, imbibed 
the national predilections, cherished the national traditions, 
and become familiarized with the national proverb, and tale, 
and anecdote.— It pleased Him to raise up and qualify one 
who, from the very dawn of his being, had been steeped into 
all the peculiarities, domestic and social, civil and religious, 
which constitute the incommunicable national character of 
a people,— one who, having grown up to manhood saturated 
with these peculiarities, could instinctively or intuitively 
as it were, touch a hundred secret chords in the hearts of 



331 

his countrymen, with a thrilling power which no foreigner 
could ever emulate. — In a word, it pleased Him who al- 
ways most wisely adapts his instruments to their intended 
operation, to raise up and qualify a John Knox to be the Re- 
former of Scotland. So, in like manner, must we conclude, 
from the analogy of history and providence, that, when the 
set time arrives, the real Reformers of Hindustan, will he quali- 
fied Hindus. As in every other case of national awakening, 
the first impulse must come from abroad ; its onward dy- 
namic force must be of native growth. The glimmering 
lights that usher in the dawn may sparkle from afar in the 
western horizon ; but it is only in its own firmament that 
the Sun of Reformation can burst forth in effulgence over a 
benighted land. 

It is needless to pursue the subject any farther. Let any 
one of the preceding statements be subjected to what abate- 
ments and deductions you please ; do not the whole, taken 
in conjunction, amount to a demonstration of the necessity 
of looking chiefly to native labourers \ If you really wish to 
see the Gospel taught and preached in faithfulness to the 
millions of India, are you not bound to regard the rearing 
of such labourers, not a secondary and subordinate, but a 
primary and principal, if not the prime and principal part 
of an effective missionary enterprise ? If, shut up to this 
conclusion, you next ask, how are they to be raised ? We 
reply, by asking another, How have you managed this 
most momentous affair at home ? It was from the writings 
of Wickliffe, and the inoculation of Scotchmen with Refor- 
mation principles in the Continental schools, that the ele- 
ments of change were first introduced into Scotland. But 
our forefathers soon ceased to depend on foreign impulse or 
foreign supplies. How came this to be effected? How 
came the tide of Reformation to roll so freely over the land, 
and its influences to descend downwards, perpetuated from 
age to age ! Did our fathers wait for miracles to qualify 
the labourers I Or did they trust to chance or accident or 



332 



hap-hazard, in producing teachers and preachers of the 
Word? No. With a practical sagacity never surpassed 
and perhaps never equalled, they resorted to an expedient, 
the only effective one within their reach, — an expedient 
which has evinced its efficiency by proving, if rightly man- 
aged, fully adequate to the mighty end intended? And 
what was that ? Why, they just founded parochial schools 
for the young, and higher institutions or academies for the 
more advanced, and overtopping all, the metropolitan uni- 
versities with their divinity halls. From these fountain- 
heads of Christian education, they calculated that there 
would issue forth a successive supply of teachers and preach- 
ers of every grade. And did they calculate in vain ? Let 
history furnish the reply. For more than two hundred 
years Scotland has not looked to Germany or Switzerland. 
From its own institutions an abundant supply has been 
provided— has been perpetuated— and may be extended on- 
wards through every coming age. And where do the peo- 
ple of this land look now for teachers and preachers ? Is it 
to the illiterate, — the mentally undisciplined but well-in- 
tentioned and pious adult ? No : it is to the godly youth, 
reared and trained in your own scholastic institutions. 
Now, why should not we attempt to do in India what has 
been done in Scotland ? In India we want— not scores or 
hundreds of native teachers and preachers as at home,— but 
thousands and tens of thousands. For the rearing of these, 
why should not we institute a counterpart-process to that 
which in Scotland has proved so eminently successful ? In 
other words, why should not we plant our Christian schools, 
academies, and colleges, on the Indian as well as on the Scot- 
tish soil ? 

There are, however, minds which seem as if wrapt up in 
points,— moving circularly on pivots,— cherishing their own 
one little idea,— and spinning it out into their own one fa^ 
vourite theory. Any thing beyond or above the horizon of 
this Lilliputian domain, must be wrong— must be antiscrip- 
tural— must be heretical. Such persons are ever apt to be 
scared by sounds. When schools and other institutions of 



333 



different grades are spoken of in connection with the mission- 
ary enterprise, they are forthwith haunted with dread of 
the fanatical dreams of intellectualizing visionaries respecting 
the diffusion of mere secular knowledge and education apart 
from religion. Need we say, that with such institutions no 
missionary society had ever any thing to do— and God forbid 
they ever should ! For what has been the result of such at- 
tempts \ In the face of a perverse and scoffing generation, 
we must solemnly declare our conviction, that unless past 
experience be a lying chronicler, and past history a fable, 
such institutions, however eulogised by the men of this world, 
must ever prove schools of dissatisfaction, agitation and tur- 
bulence, nurseries of infidelity and atheism. With these 

therefore, we would have nothing to do. No ! By the vene- 
rated shades of the German Luthers and Melancthons, — by 
the venerated shades of the English Wickliffes and Cran- 

mers, by the venerated shades of our Scottish Knoxes and 

Melvilles,— we protest and declare that never, never would 
we, in deference to the clamours of any antichristian faction 
in Britain or in India, consent to the diffusion of general 
knowledge in connection with the missionary enterprise, ex- 
cept in close and inseparable alliance with that far higher 
and sublimer knowledge of the only true religion which is 
contained in the Bible,— the whole Bible,— the unmutilated 
Bible,— and nothing but the Bible ! What then, shall we 
say to those inland unadventurous spirits whose one or two 
ideas seem to bound the horizon of their intellectual vision, 
as much as the pillars of Hercules bounded the world of the 
ancient geographers \ May we not ask, whether Christian 
educational institutions have been of any avail in our own 
land. If so, why may they not be of equal utility in hea- 
then lands \ If otherwise, why do not those who entertain 
such an opinion, in proof of the sincerity of their principles, 
go forth with the destroying scythe, and mow down our 
Christian seminaries of every grade I Why do they not, in 
the spirit of the everters of Pelion and Ossa, strive to toss 
our schools and universities into the depths of sea ? — and, 
turning round, and smiling at the wreck and havoc they 



334 



have made, why not then declare that others have acted 
inconsistently with their views, in desiring to erect Christian 
institutions on the banks of the Ganges or Godavery, as has 
been done on the banks of the Forth and the Clyde, the Isis 
and the Cam? But this is too absurd. The most un- 
thinking of pietists,— all, in fact, but the half-crazy or the 
wholly crazed, must be ready to allow that at home Christian 
institutions are the very bones and sinews of the entire sys- 
tem of Protestant Christianity. And if they have proved of 
such incalculable service at home ; may we not again and 
again reiterate the question, why not prove of correspond- 
ing service abroad ? We want thousands of labourers ! 
Will you, we ask the friends of missions, will you supply 
them from home ? You cannot if you would ; and we would 
not have you if you could. The majority would labour under 
disabilities which would reduce their services to nonentity. 
We must have native labourers ! Why then object to our 
employing the same means in rearing them, which have issued 
in a success so triumphant at home ? Why should that be 
right in principle in one quarter of the world, which must 
be repudiated as wrong in another ? Why should that be 
sound, orthodox, scriptural, evangelical in one place ; which 
must be stamped as unsound, heterodox, anti-scriptural, un- 
evangelical in another \ Why should that instrument which 
has secured and perpetuated the evangelization of once Pa- 
gan and Popish Britain, be condemned when we attempt to 
evangelize idolatrous India ? 

To secure a race of native propounders of " the truth as 
it is in Jesus," fraught with the possession of all knowledge 
human and divine, and richly endowed with the treasures of 
grace, is our grand specific and central design in wishing to 
establish Christian seminaries in India after the model of 
those at home ;— and not, as has been « slanderously report- 
ed;' in order to elevate human learning at the expense of 
divine truth ; or to regenerate a benighted people by the 
diffusion of mere "useful knowledge;" or to countenance 
the demi-infidel scheme of civilising first, and Christianizing 
afterwards. And is not the design of all others the noblest ? 



335 



Is there not in the proposed means a peculiar adaptation 
to the proposed end — an adaptation sanctioned by the ap- 
probation of the wisest and most enlightened patriarchs of 
the Christian faith — an adaptation recommended by the 
most successful experiments of a triumphant Protestantism \ 
If the means be inappropriate, we demand to know by what 
species of moral or spiritual alchemy, in the absence of mi- 
raculous interposition, can qualified teachers and preachers 
be secured either in Britain or in India, apart from an enlight- 
ened Christian education? If there be any, we demand 
that the process be explained to us, that we may be saved 
from the heartless, thankless expenditure of labour and of 
money, in supporting schools, academies, and colleges ? If 
there is no other, let us not be incessantly taunted and jeer- 
ed, merely for instituting, — not as the vagary of theory, but 
as the result of experiment, — the most effectual apparatus 
which the records of history point out as at all commensur- 
ate with the end contemplated. 

In this view of the case, besides nominating men directly 
to preach the Gospel, one grand and primary object with all 
our societies should be to send forth individuals whose spe- 
cific commission might be, to devote their time and talents 
and energies to the raising up of numbers qualified to sound 
the Gospel from shore to shore. Hitherto, in the practical 
working of the general system, the leading object has been 
to send forth men to discharge the former of these functions 
rather than the latter. Now, the former, not one in ten of 
European missionaries, ever will exercise to the satisfaction 
of his own conscience, or in such a way as to merit the 
approval of the truly wise and enlightened. The latter, the 
pious and learned European missionary not only can, but 
it is he alone who at present can, most efficiently dis- 
charge. And why should the European missionary insist, 
against the nature of things and the lessons of experience, 
on doing that which he never can adequately achieve ? Why 
should he leave wholly undone that which he alone is able 
adequately to perform ? To a burning clime like that of In- 
dia, let our great Missionary Societies therefore resolve to 



336 



send forth from these shores, not only the men who are 
themselves expected to be working heralds in the open 
field, but also the men who in the hands of a gracious Pro- 
vidence may become the raisers up of those who shall prove 
the most effectual heralds. By so acting, what else is vir- 
tually done, except to transfer a large proportion of their 
present machinery from the home to the foreign field? 
Whatever may have been the sentiments of the modern 
founders of missions, as to the qualifications of candidates, 
there can scarcely be but one opinion now on the necessity 
of their being first-rate men,— both as to natural and ac- 
quired attainments, as well as to endowments of grace. Have 
not our principal Missionary Societies already their respec- 
tive institutions for the educating and training of those who 
are to be sent forth to the foreign field ? And is it thought 
to be any desecration of the ministerial character, any low- 
ering of its dignity, that one or more ordained to preach the 
Gospel, should be placed at the head of these,— our home mis- 
sionary institutions I On the contrary, is it not by common 
consent allowed, that they are the very chieftains of the 
ministerial phalanx, who alone are entitled to occupy the pre- 
eminent office of nourishing and cherishing not the members 
of an ordinary flock, but a company of shepherds destined 
to take the oversight of many flocks I Instead, therefore, 
of appointing mere preachers to the missionary field, we 
would have all denominations to send forth some of the most 
eminent and distinguished of their number, to carry on the 
same work in India and elsewhere, which they are now so 
successfully conducting in Britain. The Church of England, 
the Church of Scotland, the Wesleyans, the Independents, 
and the Baptists, have their respective universities, colleges, 
and academies, for rearing British teachers and pastors for 
the British field. Some of these also have their separate 
mission-institutions for rearing British missionaries for the 
heathen world. What, then, do we propose ? Simply, that 
each and all of these should establish similar institutions in 
India, for the rearing of Indian native pastors and mission- 
aries for the Indian field. At the commencement of the 



337 



missionary enterprise, this might not have been practicable. 
At home, ignorance and misconception, partialities and 
prepossessions unmodified by experience, greatly prevailed; 
abroad, the most extravagant jealousies and suspicions on 
the part of rulers and ruled, as to the motives, designs, and 
plans of missionaries. Time, with its corrective processes, 
was necessary to open the eyes, and conciliate the views of 
all parties. Years have now rolled their course ; the aspect 
of things accordingly both at home and abroad, is wholly 
changed. Tentative experimental efforts without number 
are on record, with all their results favourable and unfa- 
vourable. Initiatory, elementary, and preparatory labours, 
have advanced so far as to admit of a rapid spring upwards 
in the ascending scale of operation. What might have been 
utterly impracticable a century ago, may now be the demand 
of reason and experience, of providence and the very nature 
of things. Instead therefore of any longer vainly striving to 
rear at home such numbers as may directly overspread the 
land, let the conductors of missions furnish a few eminently 
qualified, who shall on the spot rear up those who can most 
efficiently overspread the land. Instead of expending nearly 
all their resources on the education and equipment of British 
missionaries, let but a fraction henceforward be expended 
on the maintenance of a few superior men ; and the greater 
part on the educating and supporting of native labourers. 
By such a change of system, the progress abroad would in 
the end be vastly accelerated ; and tenfold more real work 
performed at tenfold less expenditure of British lives and 
British resources. 

Such a scheme, vigorously carried out, would, no doubt, 
cause a considerable revolution in the present system of mis- 
sionary operation at home and abroad. It would remove 
from it altogether the vague, the indefinite, the shadowy, the 
mysterious. It would gradually reduce the whole to plain, 
intelligible common sense. It would remove the false glare 
and glitter which has been thrown around the missionary 
character. It would dissolve the wild and airy visions which 
hover around the missionary enterprise. It would prove the 

Y 



338 



work of evangelising the nations to be a work of pains-tak- 
ing hard-toiling drudgery, — as void of real romance, as the 
labour of excavating and reclaiming the dingy realm of rags 
poverty and infidelity, which flank the lanes, alleys, and pur- 
lieus of our overgrown cities. Cruel disturber !— may some 
respond,— cruel disturber, to disenchant us of our glorious 
dreams ! We cannot help it ; our only reply will ever be, 
—Better far, infinitely better, that British sentimentalists 
should be deprived of their regalements, than that multi- 
tudes of the heathen should continue to perish ! 



To the general scheme now advocated, a host of objec- 
tions will be started. 

By some it will be said that this is to send forth not mis- 
sionaries to preach the Gospel, hut teachers or professors to 
discipline the young in class-rooms, and to lecture in the halls 
of colleges. The insinuation is, either that the preaching of 
the Word is hereby neglected or disparaged; or that the lat- 
ter office is, in comparison with that of preaching, altogether 
inferior, undignified, or unproductive. Strange inconsidera- 
tion !— inconceivable absurdity ! The preaching of the Gospel 
neglected or disparaged ! — when the main object in view is to 
magnify and make it honourable, by raising up hundreds 
who can preach it with the greatest effect ; and consequently, 
with the most cheering prospect of extended usefulness ! As 
well might he be said to neglect and disparage legal plead- 
ings, who devoted his life to the qualifying of hundreds 
whose natural endowments might enable them to plead at 
the bar more successfully than himself. As well might he 
be said to neglect or disparage the ministration of medi- 
caments to the sick the wounded and the maimed, who ex- 
pended his energies in qualifying hundreds whose physical 
and other capacities might enable them to supply the neces- 
sary balm more effectually than himself. To talk of inferior 
or diminished dignity,— even if the charge were as well as 
it is ill founded,— must appear unseemly in the case of 
those whose large pretensions to humility would lead us to 



339 



expect that they were prepared to act as " hewers of wood, 
and drawers of water" in the house of their God, if thereby 
His service might be promoted, and His glory advanced. 
The speech about unproductiveness is one far more fit for 
" Milton's Paradise of Fools," than for an assembly of beings 
endowed with ordinary reflection. A master-mechanist, in- 
stead of directly plying the oar to save from the raging bil- 
lows a crew of shipwrecked mariners, builds a hundred life- 
boats, and instructs thousands how to guide them across the 
angry surges. — When a mighty tempest has strewn the 
shore with stranded navies, and numbers have been rescued 
from a watery grave by these life-boats so buoyant and well- 
manned, can the labours of the mechanist be pronounced un- 
productive I Again, an engineer, instead of directly plying 
an hydraulic machine to quench the flames of a blazing edi- 
fice, constructs a hundred fire-engines, and initiates thou- 
sands into the use of them. — When a conflagration, which 
has seized some neighbouring dwelling, and threatens to re- 
duce whole streets to ashes, has been extinguished by these 
engines skilfully wrought, can the labours of the engineer 
be said to be unproductive I Once more, suppose war to 
be proclaimed by our Sovereign, and all loyal subjects to be 
summoned to the field. The strong and the active at once 
present themselves to serve in person. Of those who remain 
behind, there are some who are fired with the martial spirit ; 
their heart is with marching armaments ; their conversation 
breathes of heroism; — though, from sundry causes, they 
may be incapacitated for the toils and fatigues of active war- 
fare. Do they remain idle I No ; they stir up their neigh- 
bours. They infuse the spirit of patriotism into their slug- 
gish bosoms. They accustom their ears to tales of noble dar- 
ing. They enkindle the flame of generous emulation. They 
provide the weapons, and show how these are to be wielded. 
They inculcate all the lessons of the military art. They 
habituate the inexperienced to the evolutions of the field, — 
the stratagems in attack, — the dispositions in the camp. In 
a word, by their appeals their teaching and their resistless en- 
ergy, they raise up and equip hundreds of warriors, who other- 



340 



wise would have lagged behind, as idle and worthless loungers. 
These become the flower of the army. Of the number many 
distinguish themselves, — some at the head of battalions 
entering besieged cities, — others as commanders in the field 
of glory and of triumph. We ask, have the labours of those 
veterans who reared such a host of conquering warriors been 
unproductive ? On the contrary, have they not been the best 
friends of their king, — the best benefactors of their country ? 
Have they not done a hundredfold more than others, by the 
course they have adopted ? Had they rushed on to the field 
in person, they might have testified their devotion to their 
country's cause ; but would they have helped so essentially 
in saving the king's throne, or in defending their fellow-citi- 
zens ? They might soon have fallen ; and if so, what would 
their death be, but an idle martyrdom? By retaining a 
fixed position, they raised up those who saved their country 
and their king. Deny them the title of soldiers if you will ; — 
were they not above the rank of common soldiers or common 
commanders ? By creating, as it were, whole bands of heroes, 
did they not achieve the service of arch- warriors ? How appli- 
cable the whole of this representation to the case of missions ! 
Millions are stranded on the shore of an unprovided-for eter- 
nity — millions are exposed to the flames of an eternal burning: 
— and if a man, instead of going forth single-handed to their 
rescue, employs himself in qualifying hundreds, each of whom 
may be more likely to deliver than himself, — must his labours 
be stigmatized as unproductive, merely because these labours 
are manifested only through an intermediate, though vastly 
multiplied agency? Again, the nations are in rebellion 
against the Lord and His Anointed. The Captain of Jeho- 
vah's hosts summons us to battle. All the faithful are roused. 
Numbers rush to the field. Many are disabled for efficient 
active service ; but the fire, the energy, the skill, and the 
science, have not left them. They resolve, therefore, to 
raise up and equip an host of soldiers, who, by wielding the 
sword of the Spirit, eventually subjugate the whole land. 
Call not these men missionaries or preachers, if you will. 
Are they not more than ordinary preachers,— more than 



341 



ordinary missionaries? Are they not entitled to the de- 
signation of arch-preachers —arch-missionaries I If, instead 
of serving in person, they have, by their presence and tuition, 
summoned into existence more than a hundredfold their 
own number of soldiers and captains, have their labours 
been unproductive in furthering the sacred cause of missions 
—the glory of God— the welfare of lost souls 2 

But though all were to proceed to the field, primarily to 
be engaged in the great work of rearing native missionaries, 
it does not follow that all must be exclusively so engaged, 
or any one of them by necessity permanently so. They may 
preach to the classes of preparandi every day ; they may 
preach to other audiences as often as they list ; they may en- 
gage in all the miscellaneous business necessary to the pros- 
perity of the mission. And if, after being gradually inured 
to the climate, habituated to the use of the languages and 
the usages of the people, any one should exhibit the decided 
predilection, and the requisite qualifications bodily and men- 
tal, he might be separated entirely for native preaching. His 
place as preceptor in the mission institution might be sup- 
plied by one less experienced in the peculiarities, or less fa- 
voured by the necessary endowments for general discursive 
native work. Or if one showed the activity and tact, the con- 
ciliation and love and spirit of governance, he might be separ- 
ated as superintendent of a circle of stations, amongst which 
he might constantly itinerate, exercising an inspection over 
them— confirming, inspiring, strengthening, and cherishing 
the churches. Or, if one had an aptitude and taste for language 
and criticism, he might be entirely set apart for conducting 
the work of translations. And so with every other conceiv- 
able office. In fact, such a scheme would be a nursery for 
training all Europeans, gifted with the natural capacities, to 
engage directly in native preaching, superintendence, trans- 
lation, or any other office for which their respective powers 
and acquisitions best fitted them. By such division of la- 
bour, what a saving of time and money— what prevention of 
disappointment and heartbreaking ! 

In this way also, we might expect the occasional services 



342 



of men in the heathen field, at present almost by physical 
necessity prevented. Men of long standing and experience 
would be best to act as superintendents and raisers of mis- 
sionaries. But these might be the worst fitted for the la- 
bours and exposures of direct preaching in the native tongues. 
At present, all are expected to learn living languages, submit 
to infinite toils and personal hardships. Now, when men 
pass considerably the age of puberty, their individual and 
social habits are formed and fixed ; their organs of speech 
become rigid ; the frame less elastic ;— and altogether they 
may conscientiously feel that it amounts to a physical im- 
possibility that they can ever thoroughly master strange 
tongues, or bear up under the rocking of accumulated perils. 
Thus, even though our most celebrated divines were ever so 
willing, we could not expect them to excel in direct preach- 
ing to the natives. We could scarcely imagine any one of 
the patriarchs of our British churches, preaching in Ben- 
gali, or Mahratta, or Tamul, or Sanskrit ! In fact, the past 
and present system of missions, almost of necessity, exclud- 
ed from the field, all such men,— almost of necessity threw 
the entire burden on the young and inexperienced. The child 
was sent to wield the sword of a giant ;-mere striplings 
were commissioned to bear the armour of Saul,— striplings 
who never had it in their power to certify their possession 
of the extraordinary faith which might cause their stone and 
sling to prove an equal match for the mighty and vauntful 
powers of heathenism. Hence, one of the reasons why there 
are so many labourers in the foreign field with hands hang- 
ing down, knees feeble, and feet lame,— with little or no 
cheering progress ! According to the other system, what is 
there to prevent some of the most eminent of our theo- 
logians from going forth themselves into the missionary 
held . All the instructions, in the more advanced classes of 
a mission institution, being conveyed through the medium 
ot English, our most renowned teachers and lecturers might 
be transferred from their charges and lectureships at home 
to a foreign station— and instantly on their landing, they 
might commence active exertion, and devote to the heathen 



343 



the riches of their experience, the flower of their graces, and 
the excellency of their strength. 

Many, fired with the glowing record of primitive times, 
cannot brook the tame common-place and dull monotony 
of the scheme proposed — cannot brook its noiseless begin- 
ning, and gradual and for many years almost impercep- 
tible developement. Their minds are borne along by 
vivid remembrances of the time when thousands were con- 
verted in a day. Regarding every missionary as a suc- 
cessor of St Peter, they will not be satisfied unless it can be 
reported that, whenever he stands up in the presence of heathen 
multitudes, thousands at once surrender the prejudices of ages ; 
and in a day turn from dumb idols to serve the living God. 
Even where there are no such extravagant hopes, there are 
degrees of expectation— more or less undefined— which hover 
around the brink of the marvellous, and crave for fresh fuel 
of excitement in the interesting, the striking, and the extra- 
ordinary. 

These, however, entirely overlook one grand peculiarity 
in the history of Creation and Redemption. Between the 
divine procedure at the two great eras, when the Creative 
and Redemptive acts were put forth, there is a striking 
analogy. Both were seasons when antecedence was vio- 
lently broken in upon. Both were seasons when all agency 
must be supernatural. At the time when all things were 
successively summoned from the womb of nothing, every act 
was a stupendous miracle. To magnify the wonders of 
omnipotent power, all the constituents of elementary na- 
ture were at once created — then separated into parts, or 
variously combined into all the forms, organized or unorgan- 
ized, which constitute the universe. From the fish of the sea, 
the fowl of the air, the beast of the field, and creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth, up to man, the lord of crea- 
tion — all were produced at once in their mature and per- 
fect state. God thereby proved what omnipotence could 
do ; and that, if He so willed it, He could, by a succession 



344 



of creative acts, perpetuate a successive race of creatures — » 
starting at once, like the premordial races, into the form 
and stature of perfect beings. But did He will so to act I 
No : He appointed laws of propagation, growth, and matur- 
escence. And henceforth, all creatures were to multiply 
and replenish the earth agreeably to these ordinary laws. 

So at the time when the great work of redemption was 
consummated. — It was a season when heaven was lavish of 
supernatural agency. The coming forth of the eternal Son 
to tabernacle for a season, in human form, on a spot so 
humble, and among a race so guilty and depraved, was itself 
the miracle of miracles — to which there is nothino- similar 
or second in the annals of eternity. After this, every mira- 
cle — the creation of a world, or its annihilation — must sink 
into comparative insignificance. How much more such 
miracles as healing the sick, or raising the dead, or stilling 
the stormy waves 2 And when the great work was finished, 
it pleased the Lord to display the wonders of omnipotent 
grace. The heavens were opened ; the Spirit descended in 
the plenitude of his influences. Around the heads of the 
Apostolic band, He appeared in the visible manifestation of 

cloven tongues of fire. Emblems divinely significant ! 

Tongues, to indicate their future office, that of proclaiming 
the great salvation ; — cloven, to mark out the division and 
distribution of speech into divers languages, in all of which 
they were to make known the glad tidings ; — of fire, to show 
that the influence of the Spirit accompanying their preach- 
ing, would consume and devour like stubble every opposing 
obstacle presented by sin, or Satan, or the world. When, 
after this baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire, Peter stood 
forth in the midst of his countrymen, and preached Jesus 
of Nazareth, whom by wicked hands they slew, the heavens 
opened a second time, and thousands were new born, and 
attained 1; to the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus." 

Jehovah thereby proved what omnipotent grace could do ; 
and that if He willed it, He could by an instantaneous ope- 
ration, perpetuate a successive race of perfect saints. But 
He did not will so to act. As in the case of natural propaga- 



345 



tion and succession, so here. To Adam and his seed, God 
said, "Multiply and replenish the earth." To thesecondAdam 
and His seed was the like commission intrusted, to multiply 
and replenish the earth with a spiritual progeny. In the lat- 
ter case, as in the former, laws of growth and developement 
were appointed. And by the employment of such ordinary 
means alone, have we now any title to expect the divine 
blessing. We might wish, that at the sound of our voice, 
the fortresses of Paganism might fall, as did the walls of 
the fenced cities of Palestine, before the blast of the trum- 
pet. But if the Lord has willed otherwise, what remains 
but that we should resort to the more tedious, laborious, 
and less brilliant process of besieging and sapping. We 
may dislike the toil and the pains-taking and the drudgery 
of all this. We may conceive that this step and that in the 
long slow process must be beneath our dignity. But what 
may all this prove except inward pride and rebelliousness 
against God ? It would indeed place us on a loftier emi- 
nence if, whenever we raised our voice, multitudes repented 
and were baptized. But if the Lord has decreed that we 
should now resort to the more toilsome process of expending 
years in teaching, catechising, and preaching, — reiterating 
again and again our expositions and exhortations, adding 
line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and 
there a little : — if He has decreed that only as the result of 
such humble persevering labours, need we in general expect 
souls to be converted ; and if we refuse so to act as the 
Lord hath appointed, what is this but to murmur impiously 
at His dispensations — and, madly resolving that our own 
way and not His must be taken, impatiently to fret if, de- 
spising His, and adopting our own, we fail of the expected 
success ? A proprietor has a field to be cultivated ; the 
more difficult part of it he instantly and with ease upturns 
by means of some new and extraordinary instrument of hus- 
bandry. He commands his servants to go and cultivate the 
remainder. No, say they, not unless you give us your 
new and extraordinary instrument ; by which we can soon 
finish the work with ease to ourselves, and eclat from our 



346 



neighbours. No, replies the master, such an instrument is 
no longer necessary ; here is an ample supply of ordinary 
implements. With these you must now labour. I do not 
expect that you will make the same rapid progress as if 
you wielded the more powerful engine ; but be diligent in 
the use of the means put within your reach, and the end in 
view will be fully attained, and I shall be satisfied. If, after 
this, the servants refuse, are they not rebellious servants I 

In like manner, if after a season of supernatural agency 
which was expressly designed to be temporary, God in His 
Word and Providence, has testified that for the future a new 
and ordinary series of means was to be appointed : — if He 
in effect has said to His servants, In future you must work 
by ordinary means ; — and if they in substance by their con- 
duct reply, No ; Lord, we will not work unless Thou exhibit 
the extraordinary : — what is this but fighting against God 1 
If, on the other hand, after scanning the decisions of God's 
Word, the analogy of Providence, and the history of the 
Church, we resolve to adopt and institute those ordinary 
means which have been substituted instead of the extraor- 
dinary : — if, instead of insisting on one only method of pro- 
cedure — that of addressing a multitude in a set form of 
speech, and expecting therefrom sudden miraculous conver- 
sions as the rule — we resolve cheerfully to betake ourselves 
to all those measures which the Lord himself hath appointed 
and blessed, can such resolution be justly stigmatized as a 
slighting of His holy will ? Rather, will it not prove that 
those who adopt it are the most loyal of subjects who ear- 
nestly desire to manifest their faith in the divine promises, 
—their resignation to the divine will,— their absolute sub- 
mission to the divine sovereignty ? 

Connected with this view of the subject, there arises an- 
other consideration of vast practical moment. In the case of 
the J ews and neighbouring Gentiles, at the beginning of the 
Christian era, there was huge preparatory work. The former 
in particular, were disciplined by typical ordinances and ex- 
press prophecies, — by preliminary reflections and long-che- 
rished hopes of a coming Deliverer. Were not the Gentiles at 



347 



the same time prepared for change \ Was there not a con- 
stant and universal expectation? Did not the Prince of Roman 
Poets celebrate by anticipation the glories of a new age ? 
The preparatory processes which paved the way for the Re- 
formation of the sixteenth century, are matters of indisput- 
able historic record. The pretensions of the Popes to the 
thrones and kingdoms of Christendom — pretensions con- 
stantly swelling in insolent audacity — sowed the seeds of 
impatience and revolt in the bosom of Princes. The ex- 
orbitant avarice and shameless profligacies of the members 
of the hierarchy had widely created a lurking hatred and 
contempt. The monstrous height to which the system of 
" cowls, hoods, and habits — reliques, beads, indulgences, dis- 
penses, pardons, bulls," — had been carried, awakened a senti- 
ment of secret but very general indignation. The discovery 
of a new world, the opening up of a passage to India, with 
the intensely cherished hopes of advantage in commercial 
enterprise, united to give an impulse to the mind ; and to en- 
large that narrow circle of thought within which, for ages, 
it had vegetated. But by far the most decisive denouement of 
a preparatory nature, was the revival of ancient literature. 
The Popish system was propped up by falsified history and 
apocryphal legends, a perverted logic and a corrupt philo- 
sophy. To maintain such an edifice in its integrity, there 
must be ignorance at once profound and universal. Hence 
the reason why not only the reading of the Scriptures, but the 
study of all ancient authors whatsoever, was peremptorily pro- 
scribed. At length, however, the capture of Constantinople 
by the Turks drove a host of learned fugitives into Italy. 
These introduced along with themselves the writings of the 
master spirits of ancient Greece. Wearied and worn out by 
the interminable monotony of scholasticism, — with its quiddi- 
ties, entities, essences, and hsecceities, — many of the generous 
youth of noble blood eagerly betook themselves to the original 
springs of Grecian history, poetry, and philosophy. The sound 
of the new acquirements penetrated the scholastic institutions 
of sober, thoughtful, inquisitive Germany; and numbers issued 
thence to drink at the pure Castalian fount which had been 



348 



opened in Southern Italy. What was the result ? A free 
open and manly spirit of inquiry was infused. The fabric 
of superstition and scholasticism, in which the soul had for 
ages been imprisoned, received a violent shock. Numbers 
now dared to think for themselves, and give full license to 
the expression of their sentiments. The powers of error 
alarmed at the dawning intelligence, denounced the new 
learning as heretical ; and its leading promoters as heresi- 
archs. The decision of the mendicant monk accurately ty- 
pified the spirit of Catholicism at large. " They have," said 
he, " invented a new language, which they call Greek. You 
must be carefully on your guard against it ; it is the mother 
of all heresy. I observe in the hands of many persons, a 
book written in that language, and which they call the New 
Testament. It is a book full of daggers and poison. As to 
the Hebrew, my dear brethren, it is certain that all those 
who learn it, instantaneously become Jews." Still the new 
learning grew in favour with an increasing number of the 
academical youth in different parts of Europe. Exasperated 
by its growing success, the champions of the reign of igno- 
rance and barbarism — pope and cardinals, bishops and chap- 
ters, monks and abbots, metaphysicians and theologians — 
all united as one man to annihilate by anathemas and per- 
secution, the apostles and emissaries of the new illumination. 
At the head of the latter were placed by universal consent, the 
celebrated Erasmus and Reuchlin, — the latter of whom, from 
his profound learning, was denominated " a miracle of erudi- 
tion," the very " phoenix of letters." Around these as lead- 
ers, rallied the friends of literature, not only in Germany, 
but in Italy, Holland, France, England, and other countries. 
There were thus arrayed against each other, two grand con- 
federated hosts, — the friends of ignorance and tyranny, and 
the friends of light and liberty. It was no longer a private 
or a personal struggle. It was a contest of principle and 
opinion — a collision not of physical, but of intellectual and 
moral energies — a hostile encounter between the hoary 
genius of the dark ages and the youthful spirit of modern 
illumination ; towards which the eyes of all Europe were 



349 



forcibly drawn. The mutual shocks which ensued, tended to 
agitate the stagnant marshes of prescriptive ignorance and 
superstition, with the violence of a tempest. When multi- 
tudes were thus aroused and prepared for decisive change, 
Luther suddenly appeared on the field of battle. Armed 
with the panoply of all learning, human and divine,—- blessed 
with the light, and fortified by the graces of the Holy Spirit, 
he at once withdrew the allies from their fierce and baffling 
warfare among the outworks ; — and by directing the com- 
bined attack against the very foundation-stone of Catholi- 
cism, which is laid on the rock of self-righteousness, he 
speedily converted the literary into a religious reformation. 
Hence the significance of the current saying among the Ro- 
manists of the sixteenth century, that " Erasmus laid the 
egg which Luther only hatched. 11 Hence the famous admis- 
sion of Luther himself in an epistle to Reuchlin, that he (viz. 
Luther) " had only followed in his (Reuchlin's) steps — had 
only consummated his (Reuchlins) victory in breaking the 
teeth of the Behemoth. 11 

Judging from these and other similar analogies, must we 
not naturally expect a process of preparation in a country 
like India ? And what mightier engine of preparation can 
there be than an enlarged system of Christian education 
instituted specially to rear teachers and preachers? By 
it the abominations of idolatry must be consumed ; and the 
subtilties of Pantheism must be identified with the age of 
presumptuous ignorance. The minds of hundreds and thou- 
sands will be surcharged with the elements of change. Even 
when no direct conversion ensues, much of the spirit and 
influences of Christianity will cleave to the rightly educated 
youth, whatever may be their future situation in life. The 
Christian teacher, remarks a respected fellow-labourer,* with 
equal effect and truth, " elevates the intellect ; but he also 
directs it aright. The dagon of idolatry falls prostrate be- 
fore him ; but the temple is not left empty ; it is filled with 
the ark of the Lord. The religious feeling, the conscience, 
the sense of accountability are not unsettled or destroyed. 
* Rev. Mr M'Kay. 



350 



They acquire new force ; they are enlightened, purified, and 
renewed. The man may defy them or flee from their voice ; 
but he flees with the arrow in his side. The words of the Gos- 
pel are like nails fastened in a sure place ; and the man who 
has once listened to them, is ever after constrained by the ir- 
resistible force of truth to judge every action by the Grospel 
standard. Thus far at least we must succeed. The spirit of 
God converts the soul ; and we trust it will not be withheld 
from us : — while we have the satisfaction of knowing that 
every youth, educated in our schools, leaves them with the law of 
Christ written upon his conscience, and a helief in the truth of 
Christ seated deep in his convictions." Well has it been added, 
that " the school prepares an audience for the preacher. A 
mind brutalized by idolatry, and a conscience perverted, al- 
most blinded by a false standard, are not the soil in which 
the seed is best fitted to take root. But by enlightening the 
intellect and moral sense, a larger door of entrance is open- 
ed for the arrows of the Spirit ; and a class of hearers is 
provided, differing but by hairs breadth from a nominally 
Christian audience. The most advanced pupils may not only 
be diligent Students in their respective classes, but regular 
attendants on the formal and direct preachings of the Word 
in another department of the mission. So that teaching, 
not only prepares for preaching, but the two may go hand 
and hand." Hundreds and thousands, — constantly leaving a 
superior institution after having attained to years of man- 
hood, and occupying every office and profession through the 
various grades of society, — become, from their superior intel- 
ligence, the guides and leaders of their countrymen. Even 
though unbaptized, such disimprisoned spirits must every 
where constitute a class of hearers of the Word as different 
from their idolatrous countrymen, as the most respectable 
and attentive of baptized but unconverted church-members 
in a Christian land. What a glimpse does this view afford 
of the wide-spreading preparation for the " set time" of the 
expected crisis ! Verily, it is a grand and solemn view of 
the subject; however it may mar the immediate anticipations 
of the over-sanguine ! 



351 



While we hold that the conversion of the nations must 
be acknowledged to be the work of God, we know that pre- 
paratory methods have always been employed, though these 
have not been the same in all ages, or in all countries. In 
some parts of the world, the general or national adoption of 
Christianity has resulted from a process far too slow and 
imperceptible to be characterised as revolutionary. One in- 
dividual, or one family after another, has been added to the 
adherents of the new faith, till at length, after the lapse of 
many years, or it may be, of ages, the whole nation has be- 
come obedient to the truth. This was the case in many of 
the northern kingdoms of Europe, in their translation from 
Paganism to the profession of Christianity. In other parts 
of the world, a work of preparation has long been conducted, 
by greatly diversified attempts to disseminate Christian 
knowledge, before scarcely one individual could be said to 
be really converted. And when the preparatory work has 
been accomplished, and the time appointed has arrived, the 
Lord has made bare his holy arm, and wrought mightily 
in the hearts of thousands, — leading them in multitudes 
to renounce their idols and their " lying vanities," — so 
that it might truly be said that " a nation has been born 
in a day.'" Such was the case in the South Sea Islands. 
The latter method would appear to be that which an all- 
wise Providence has ordained to be pursued, at least in East- 
ern India. For though missionaries have toiled and laboured 
incessantly for upwards of forty years, yet they have com- 
paratively but few of even individual conversions to record. 
Must we then regard the prodigious exertions of the last forty 
years as made in vain ? By no means. They have tended, 
in different degrees, to prepare the people at large, for the ge- 
neral ultimate reception of Christianity. And though the 
visible progress may not equal the ardent wishes of any, yet 
the latent progress, to the shrewdly observant eye, far ex- 
ceeds the measure which the cold incredulity, or stinted cha- 
rity, or conceited ignorance of many, will allow them to con- 
cede. 

Let these exertions, therefore, be continued, augmented, en- 



352 



hanced. Let the Gospel be boldly preached by all who are 
really qualified^ whether possessing the sable countenance of 
the African, the olive complexion of the Hindu, or the ruddy 
hue of the Briton, — and though direct results may not im- 
mediately ensue, such preaching perseveringly carried on 
in fixed localities, must leave behind it a spiritual savour, 
which may be turned to account even after the silent lapse 
of years. Let the attempts to furnish correct translations 
of the Scriptures and other useful works, be wisely prosecut- 
ed with unceasing vigour. Let copies of the Scriptures and 
Tracts be extensively distributed wherever favourable open- 
ings are presented, and especially in the wake of an orally 
preached Gospel : — Above all, let seminaries of instruction 
of different grades, from the elementary school to the col- 
legiate institution, be established and vigorously upheld, — 
rearing teachers and preachers of the everlasting Gospel, 
and sending forth streams of quickening influences through 
the channel of a thousand disenthralled spirits : — Let these 
preparatory processes be strenuously persevered in; and there 
must, under the divine blessing, ensue a universal diffusion of 
the elements of Christian truth, and the voluntary as well as 
involuntary practical observance of many of the principles of 
the Christian Faith. Judging from the analogy of God's deal- 
ings in times past, this universal diffusion of Christian know- 
ledge, with a partial conformity to Christian practice, must 
soon be followed by the total overthrow of error, and the final 
establishment of truth. Meanwhile, during the transition 
process, one and another isolated individual will be added to 
the Church. It may be, also, that one and another isolated 
village will throw off the yoke ; and nominally, at least, profess 
the faith of Jesus. All this will tend to animate the courage 
of labourers to persevere, by furnishing them with partial spe- 
cimens, — a sort of first-fruits of the ripening harvest. When 
all the preparations have been completed — when all things 
are ripe for explosion — some unforeseen event, too trivial to 
present itself beforehand to the most imaginative speculat- 
ist, may operate as a match set to the train. Some Indian 
Tetzel may preach up one or other of the worst extrava- 



353 



gances of Brahmanism. Some Indian Luther may be roused 
to give expression to the sentiments that have long been 
secretly, though it may be vaguely, indefinitely, waveringly 
cherished in the bosoms of thousands. Whole districts may 
awaken from their slumbers. Whole cities may proclaim 
their independence. Whole provinces may catch the flame 
of liberty. — All India may be born in a day ! 

Many object to the scheme now advocated, as contrary to 
apostolic example. This objection rests on various grounds. 
" The apostles, say some, constantly itinerated from country 
to country ; therefore ought the modern missionary to do 
the same. 1 ' This subject is involved in a strange confusion 
of ideas. The modern missionary is regarded as occupying 
the room of a primitive apostle ; and then, at one inconsider- 
ate bound, the conclusion is reached, that in all things the 
one must conform to the other. All that the apostles did 
must be imitated ; — all that is done without the warrant of 
their example must be condemned. But is there common 
sense in this? Surely not. In every thing fundamental 
and essential to salvation, the apostle and missionary must 
be at one ; in every thing secondary, subordinate, or acces- 
sary, there may be diversities correspondent with diversities 
of age, climate, and civilization. In all such matters the 
apostles themselves became all things to all men, — all things 
in all places, — and would become all things in all ages. 

As to gifts and graces, some are ordinary, and others ex- 
traordinary. With the latter, the apostles were superemi- 
nently endowed. Are modern missionaries expected to 
imitate them in these ? Are they expected to work mira- 
cles I — to heal the sick, cast out devils, raise the dead, utter 
prophecies, and speak in strange tongues ? If so, none are 
fit to become candidates for the missionary office, but the 
disciples of the Irving-millenarian school. And in the capa- 
city of candidates they seem destined still to wait on till 
the Judge descend to reprove their temerity, and blast their 
presumptuous hopes. If, on the other hand, the modern 

z 



354 



missionary be not endowed with extraordinary gifts either 
of knowledge or of power, — if those who send him forth 
cannot bestow such gifts, — is it not inane or insane in 
any of them to expect him to imitate the apostles in all 
things I Take the gift of tongues : — wherein did it con- 
sist ? Was it not in this ? — that into whatever city or 
region an apostle entered, he found himself instantly, with- 
out any previous study, and solely by supernatural com- 
munication, enabled to address the native inhabitants in 
their own vernacular dialect? When on one memorable 
occasion, there were assembled at Jerusalem, " Jews, de- 
vout men, out of every nation under heaven," what was it 
that confounded the far-gathered multitudes ? Was it not 
" that every man heard the apostles speak in his own lan- 
guage?" At this they were " all amazed, and marvelled, 
saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak 
Galileans f And how hear we every man in our own tongue, 
wherein we were lorn f Parthians, and Medes, and Elam- 
ites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea, and Oap- 
padocia, in Pontus, and Asia ; Phrygia and Pamphylia, in 
Egypt, and in the parts of Lybia, about Cyrene, and stran- 
gers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians ; 
we do hear them speak in our tongues, the wonderful works 
of God." 

Is it not obvious that this miraculous gift of tongues was 
absolutely indispensable to qualify the apostles for itinerating 
over all the nations ? Can modern societies endow their 
missionaries with this indispensable miraculous gift ? Im- 
possible. If not, is it not worse than idle to expect that 
missionaries can any where itinerate after the style and ex- 
ample of the holy apostles ? To expect them to do so, is to 
expect the blind to see without eyes, and the lame to walk 
without feet. Are we then left helpless? No. The age of mira- 
cles is gone; but the Lord has not left his people without re- 
sources. Few can ever master all the minutiae of tone, accent, 
and idiom, which characterise a foreign language; but the 
learned native of every kingdom and province enjoys, in this 
respect, as regards his own people, the apostolic gift. True, 



355 



he acquires not a mastery over his own mother tongue, as 
the apostles did, in a moment, by inspiration of the Spirit ; 
but by converse with his fellows, by imitation, by means of 
grammars dictionaries and other appliances, he gradu- 
ally obtains that command of it, which inspiration could 
in a moment have conferred. Thus the learned native in 
England has for his English countrymen the apostolic gift 
of the tongue. The learned native in Wales has for his 
Welsh countrymen the apostolic gift of the tongue. The 
learned native in the Highlands of Scotland has for his 
Gaelic countrymen the apostolic gift of the tongue. The 
learned native in Bengal has for his Bengali countrymen the 
apostolic gift of the tongue. And so, the learned native of 
every kingdom, and nation, and province under heaven. 
Though not one in ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, can ever, 
like the apostles, perfectly emulate the peculiar indigenous 
gift of the natives of another realm, far less the gifts of the 
natives of many realms, or of all realms, it matters not. 
What one man cannot do for all countries and provinces, 
one or more out of each may. And thus the acquisition of 
his own language, on the part of the native of any country, 
by the laborious use of ordiiwy means, and the multiplica- 
tion of individual qualified natives in proportion to the num- 
ber of distinct languages and dialects, would form a perfect 
substitute in place of the extraordinary apostolic gift. 

To apply these remarks to India. In that vast region 
there are from thirty to forty spoken languages and dialects. 
To itinerate all over India after the apostolic example, one 
must first be able to speak in all these tongues ; — and so to 
speak, that in tone, accent, and idiom, his utterance may not 
be distinguishable from that of the natives of each of the 
widely-scattered provinces. Is this possible? Not, with- 
out the miraculous gift of tongues. To master even one, so 
as to speak it like a native, is a gift which has never been 
attained by one in ten of European missionaries. What 
then is to be done \ You call on us to itinerate like the 
apostles. But without bestowing on us the necessary gift 
of tongues, you are virtually, as well as actually, calling upon 



356 



us to achieve impossibilities ; while you despise altogether 
the use of those means, the employment of which would fur- 
nish a perfect substitute in place of the apostolic itineracy ! 
Is this wise ? How different the scheme we propose ! In 
India there are central spots — such as Calcutta, Madras, 
and Bombay — where are congregated natives from all the 
contiguous provinces. We would therefore send men to 
India, not vainly demanding of them to copy an example 
which, in the nature of things, they never can ; but we would 
send them to do what they well can ; — that is, for the ex- 
press purpose of rearing up natives, who, when duly quali- 
fied, may be dispersed over every province of the empire, 
each to declare in his own tongue the wonderful works of 
God. And if we look not at the changing form, but un- 
changing substance — not at the letter, but the spirit — we 
appeal to reason, and ask, Who are they that desire most 
effectually to realize the apostolic example? — Those who, 
occupying a false position, would go forth to do special apos- 
tolic work, without the necessary apostolic endowment ; — or 
those who, having ascertained their true position in the order 
of sequences, know and confess that, as they are not endowed 
with the apostolic gift, it were*arrant presumption in them 
to undertake the apostolic work ? — those who would inaugu- 
rate themselves into an office which the scheme of Providence 
does not seem to have designed for them — or those who, 
imperfectly qualified to assume the office themselves, would 
labour in patience to secure the race that shall most perfectly 
fulfil its duties ? Verily, we believe that those who will as- 
sume the office, and insist on directly filling it themselves, — 
while they neglect the not less Grod-honouring and man-bene- 
fiting office of preparing others for it, — do in very deed, 
though unintentionally, war against apostolic example, Scrip- 
ture, and common sense ; — and that those who strive to pre- 
pare others for the office are the very persons who, in reality 
and in truth, do imitate the apostolic example in the only way 
in their own power ; and who do insure the most perfect imi- 
tation of it on the part of others that can be realized without 
miracles. 



357 



In reference to the itinerating system followed by the 
apostles, and which, in spite of notorious disqualification, 
we are strangely expected literally to copy— its exclusive 
advocates are guilty of still farther inconsistencies. We 
know there are many who entertain the subject in so vague 
and undefined a manner, that they have scarcely formed to 
their own mind any formal conception of their own favourite 
mode of proceeding. But in a general way, from personal 
intercourse with thousands of the friends of missions, we 
would say, that there is a notion looming, as it were, through 
the mist and haze of a confused and imperfectly uninformed 
understanding, that the very charm and essence of the apos- 
tolic plan consisted in itineracy. These look at the simple 
undisputed fact of their frequent and constant locomotion. 
The image before their mind is that of men perpetually 
migrating from city to city, and from province to province. 
In the prominence given to the perambulation, they entirely 
overlook, or but very slightly notice, what the apostles 
really did at those places which they visited. They de- 
light to dwell on the rapid transition from one place to 
another. Their fancy catches fire when they follow the 
apostle — now in Arabia, the desert home of restless wan- 
derers whose tents and camels alone bespeak it as not an 
empty solitude ; then, in Egypt, the land of cities and fixed 
habitations, of pyramids and sphinxes, and mystic hierogly- 
phics now, in India, sparkling with gems, and laden with 
perfume ; then, in Scythia, wrinkled with ruggedness and 
hoary with everlasting snow ; — now, in Palestine, adorned 
with the tabernacles of the true God ; then, in Chaldea, the 
cradle of idols, that usurp and blaspheme the name of J e- 
hovah ;— now, at Athens, surrounded by the schools of phi- 
losophy,— from the Tub to the Porch, from the Forum to the 
groves of Academe ; and then, at Rome, decorated and 
enriched with the spoils of a conquered world — obelisks and 
columns from Egypt, statues and sculptures from Greece, 
embroideries and pearls from Asia — the regalia of all mon- 
archies — the choicest products and treasures of all nations. 
So carried away are they with the romance of such proce- 



358 



dure that, — though they can endure nothing except public 
preaching before multitudes, and may even rejoice to have 
the representation of such preaching supplied by the genius 
of Raphael to heighten the effect, — they loathe descending 
into the infinite details of the real business — as tame and 
prosaic. Still, we must ask, what did the apostles really do ? 
Did they preach only to multitudes, amid all the excitement 
of numbers, and the novelties of strange scenes ? No : From 
house to house they preached — they reasoned— they disputed. 
They did more; — was it not their uppermost resolve wherever 
they went, to leave behind them those who could preach in 
their absence ? The locomotion was but part of their proce- 
dure, and a very inferior instrumental part. Did they merely 
enter a city or village? and having there once or twice preach- 
ed—did they then leave it, with the vague satisfaction, that 
a deep impression had been made— returning no more, for a 
length of time, or perhaps, for ever? No : wherever they enter- 
ed, and found liberty of speech, they continued to preach on ; 
and when they found a door large and effectual opened, there 
they would remain for a period longer or shorter— a few weeks, 
or months, or even years— till the converts multiplied. Nor 
were they satisfied with ordinary converts. Unless driven 
away by the scourgings and buffetings and stonings of a fierce 
and fiery persecution, there they staid, till they succeeded in 
raising up two or more presbyters, specially qualified to ex- 
ercise oversight over the flock— that thus the good seed might 
be perpetuated after they had gone. In raising up teach- 
ers, pastors, and evangelists, the apostles had extraordinary 
powers. They not only had miraculous gifts themselves, but 
had the power of bestowing these on others. With them, ac- 
cordingly, the process of qualifying preachers, might in gene- 
ral be an instantaneous one. Be that, however, as it may, the 
grand consideration is, that such powers as God had con- 
ferred they did employ for that end. So that the fact of 
their frequent distant wanderings is not more certain than 
the fact of their uniform undeviating practice in raising up, 
and leaving behind them, a race of qualified native labourers. 
Now, is not this the very object which we propose to ac- 



359 



complish I When expected constantly to itinerate, and every 
where to preach the Gospel in person, we are called on to 
imitate only half of the apostolic example ! What ! do the 
rigid sticklers for apostolic example, call on us to imitate only 
half I— or rather the fraction of a half I — and that by no 
means the most important fraction \ They do— they will 
have us itinerate and preach — but as to the necessity of re- 
maining long enough at any one place to secure and train 
up converts, that is little attended to ; still less, the de- 
sireableness of remaining till we rear native preachers ! 
Now, it is our earnest wish to imitate not a half, or a frac- 
tion of the apostolic example ; but the entire example, in the 
only way in which we can most effectually do so. Again, 
then, we ask, who are they that really act out the very spi- 
rit and substance of the apostolic mode I — those who would 
itinerate, without the necessary qualifications, — or those who? 
unable because unqualified themselves, would resort to the 
only means in their power to secure all the actual benefits 
and results of apostolic itineration, by raising up and dis- 
persing over the provinces those who can preach to all re- 
spectively in their mother tongues 2 — those who, unlike the 
apostles, would pass rapidly from station to station, without 
waiting for substantial fruits, in the appearance of real con- 
verts, or waiting to train any of them for the ministry to be 
left behind as their successors — or those who, having found 
stations full of promise, would, like the apostles, wait and 
cultivate them ; not only to secure converts, but to train up 
those who might be the instruments of converting others 
when they were removed ? 

We do not profess to imitate the apostles directly ; but 
by the blessing of God we do seek indirectly to achieve 
most of what they were privileged to overtake. The grand 
difference between the apostles and us, consists in the nature 
of the means employed. By the inspiration of the Almighty 
Spirit they could at once speak with divers tongues. We 
are not so privileged : — but shall we murmur and rebel on 
this account \ No : By a rigid course of application study 
and discipline, we may qualify numbers to speak fluently, 



360 



each in his own tongue. And if we do so, have we not a 
substitute in lieu of the apostolic gift ? We cannot, like 
them, work miracles, to command attention, overawe the 
mind, and attest our commission ; but we may, by slow and 
laborious reiteration of facts and evidence, establish the di- 
vine authority of the doctrine ;— yea, by a process of instruc- 
tion, we may confer the capacity of comprehension where it 
does not exist. If we humbly resort to this process, have 
we not a substitute in place of the apostolic gift ? We can- 
not, like them, lay our hands on converts, saying, " Re- 
ceive ye the Holy Ghost, 1 — instantly qualifying them for the 
work of the ministry ; but we may, by long continued tui- 
tion, accompanied by the secret influence of the Spirit, rear 
up those who shall be so qualified. And if we do so, have 
we not a substitute for the apostolic gift ? In a word, what 
the apostles obtained miraculously, or achieved miraculous- 
ly, in an instant— under a supernatural dispensation of pro- 
vidence and grace— we, under the ordinary dispensation of 
providence and grace, may slowly accomplish by the diligent 
use of ordinary means. And if we refuse to resort to these 
means, our professed imitation of the apostles will be mock- 
ery and delusion in the progress— harrowing disappointment 

in the issue — rebellion against the ordination of heaven 

murderous cruelty towards the souls which we desire to 
rescue as brands from the burning. 

Oh ! it were glorious, if we had a miraculous command 
over the elements of nature. Who would submit to the 
gloomy operations of our dungeon-mines, if, by miracle, 
without labour or trouble, we could maintain a perpetual 
fire ? Who would submit to the fatigue, and toil, and waste 
of time in travelling by cumbrous machines, if we could 
take wings like a dove ; or, without artificial aid at all, at 
once transport ourselves, with the ease of celestial spirits, 
to our destined haven? Who would submit to the toil 
of tearing and rending the stubborn soil with implements of 
husbandry, if, by a word, we could command a ripened har- 
vest ; or multiply the loaves and fishes, the wine and oil, into 
the fulness of an ever-present and spontaneous supply? 



361 



Surely none. But, if God withhold the extraordinary 
power, shall we still strive to act as if we possessed it \ If 
so, were it not mad ambition, and perilous to boot \ How 
could we in that case escape perishing with cold, or plunging 
downwards like the adventurer in Rasselas, or famishing for 
want of food ? But if God grant us ordinary means, which, 
if prayerfully employed, will secure all the substantial results 
of the extraordinary, ought we not to account it our highest 
privilege to use them I If we do, in humble dependence on 
heaven, we may maintain a perpetual heat, accomplish all 
our lawful journeyings, and provide against the blight- 
ing famine : — in a word, we may attain all the ends de- 
signed by Providence, — and that, too, in the very way 
pointed out and approved by Providence. We shall be 
blessed ourselves, and shall be constrained to magnify the 
name of our God. 

In like manner, it were glorious if, in connection with the 
spread of Christianity, the age of miracles were once more 
revived. Who would submit to the drudgery of master- 
ing strange characters and languages with the clumsy ap- 
paratus of grammars and dictionaries and reading les- 
sons and oral instructions of teachers, if, in a moment, we 
could expect to be endowed with the gift of tongues ? Who 
would submit to the drudgery of a species of pedagogy in 
conveying useful knowledge to acuminate the faculties, and 
enable them to appreciate the value and strength of histori- 
cal and other evidence, if, in a moment, we could expect to 
be endowed with the power of working miracles, to convince 
the candid, silence the gainsayer, and prove that God 
was with us of a truth ? Who would submit to the drudg- 
ery of years of anxious and protracted prelection to qua- 
lify preachers, if, in a moment, we could, by the laying on 
of hands, communicate all the necessary qualifications ? 
It is because we have no such extraordinary powers, that 
we must avail ourselves of ordinary ones — for the ulti- 
mate accomplishment of the same end. Time and labour 
and persevering study, an apparatus of ordinary means 
and a multiplicity of agents, may, through God's blessing, 



362 



eventually achieve all that was done in an age of mira- 
cles. And to attempt doing so, is only to fall in with the 
course of Providence — and glide along with its gentle tide. 

Still many will be ready to say, — Why so much ado 
about raising up highly educated men, by a process which, in 
the absence of miracles, must consume so much of the mis- 
sionary's time and strength ? Were the apostles themselves 
so educated ? No ; with a single exception, and mayhap, in 
the estimation of some, without a single exception, were they 
not all notoriously illiterate ? Why, then, should we wish 
for men of learning ? Why should we not be satisfied with 
pious uneducated men like the apostles \ Why ? — Because, 
according to the arrangements of an overruling Providence, 
they will not in general answer our purpose. Functionaries 
of this description have already been weighed in the balance 
and been found wanting. The universal experience of all 
sects and denominations of professing Christians pronounces 
the scheme of a pious, simple, single-hearted, but illiterate 
ministry, as utterly unsuited to cope with the difficulties of 
an office whose high design is to reclaim the wilderness of 
the heart's natural heathenism, and to multiply and reple- 
nish the earth with an abounding progeny of the faithful. 
How is this \ It is not difficult surely to perceive the reasou 
why the apostles, though illiterate, did succeed ; and why or- 
dinary ministers, when illiterate, cannot. The former were en- 
dowed with miraculous powers — the latter are not. Hence 
the success of the former ; hence too, the impracticability of 
success on the part of the latter. Only endow us with miracu- 
lous gifts, and with the power of conferring these on others, 
and we shall dispense at once with all learning. But as the 
case now stands, in the absence of miraculous gifts and powers, 
our main substitute is an extensive and sanctified learning. It 
was the design of the Almighty that the authority and truth 
of Christianity should at first be displayed with conspicuous 
and resistless evidence hence the profusion of miraculous 
endowment. It was His design that the evidence should be 



363 



heightened in its effect by causing its propagation to be mira- 
culous too. Hence were men chosen void of learning and autho- 
rity, that, when these were made to confound the wisdom of the 
wise, and bring to nought the power of the mighty, it might 
be translucently visible to every eye that the finger of God 
was there. The preachers were poor, illiterate, powerless ; 
— among the multitudes of their early followers, not many 
great, not many noble were called. And why ? For this 
express purpose amongst others, that it might be seen and 
felt by a conquered world, that it was not by the alluring 
bribes of wealth, the subtle arguments of philosophy, the 
vehement declamations of oratory, the menacing terrors of 
power, that Christianity triumphed ; — that when, — in spite 
of all the rich and the learned and the powerful in the world, 
it was seen that the poor illiterate helpless fishermen of Gali- 
lee, — after wearing out their tormentors with the multitude 
of willing victims, and extinguishing the flames of persecu- 
tion with their blood, — succeeded in planting a hated abhor- 
red faith upon the ruin and downfall of the gorgeous and 
captivating superstitions of the nations, — the reason of 
every man might cry out, — ' ; This is the doing of the Lord, 
and marvellous in our eyes." 

But are we entitled to infer that Providence would always 
follow the same plan in perpetuating and extending the 
Christian faith ? By no means. To adopt a pregnant pas- 
sage from the pages of a revered historian, — " The divine 
authority and truth of Christianity having been once com- 
pletely established, it was fit that external means of a more 
ordinary kind should be employed to facilitate its future 
diffusion, and that these should be varied according to the 
circumstances of the people among whom it was to be intro- 
duced or restored."" 

The truth of this will best appear by viewing in contrast 
the two most remarkable eras in the history of the world, — 
the early propagation of Christianity, and the grand revival 
of primitive Christianity by the Reformation of the six- 
teenth century. To this would we crave special attention, 
because it is to the former that the friends of missions almost 



364 



exclusively appeal for their models and exemplars, in reports, 
speeches, sermons, and every department of periodical mis- 
sionary literature. But why so ? — Why constantly appeal to 
a dispensation confessedly miraculous, for examples to guide 
us under a dispensation confessedly the reverse ? Why 
overlook the era of the Reformation ? Though not an era 
of extraordinary interposition, was it not watched and over- 
ruled by a signal exercise of the ordinary leadings of a 
superintending Providence ? In the primitive age all the 
means were miraculous. In the age of the Reformation all 
external means seemed to consist in a favourable conjuncture 
of circumstances, and a skilful combination of natural causes. 
But though the immediate presence of Jehovah was less 
visible, was it on that account less real ? No. It was His 
providence that prepared the conjuncture and brought about 
the skilful combination. It was the real though invisible 
influence of the Divine Spirit brooding over the moral chaos 
that vivified the mass, — predisposed the minds of men for 
change, — marshalled the hosts for battle, — and converted the 
most unlikely means into instruments to execute Heaven's 
high designs. 

When we think of that antichristian despotism which in 
the lordliness of its supremacy, annihilated the rights of con- 
science ; and, in the swellings of its pride, trode on the 
necks of the mightiest potentates : — when we think how it 
stood guarded and garrisoned by decrees of councils and 
edicts of kings; by legions of ecclesiastic monks and armies of 
warriors ; by the appalling tribunal of the Inquisition and the 
thunders of the Vatican : — when we think how, in spite of 
such mighty antagonism, in the course of a generation, pri- 
mitive Christianity— the nurse of liberty, civil and religious, 
with its magnificent retinue of attendant blessings— was re- 
stored to half the prostrate nations ! — when we seriously 
think of all this, shall we deny that the finger of God was 
there ? We may, with Adam Smith and the infidel school, 
do so. But surely not any of the friends of Protestant mis- 
sions, and least of all, those who plead for apostolic example 
in all things, will be found to accredit the infidel testimony, 



365 



They, above all others, will at once concede that the Reforma- 
tion was, in a special sense, the work of Divine Providence. 

Still, different from the miraculous dispensation which 
ushered in Christianity, the Reformation was characterised 
by the sequences of natural causes, and the application of 
ordinary means. Now, as we have no right to expect the 
age of miracles to be revived, till the glorious period when 
the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in and all Israel 
shall be saved, would it not be wiser to look for our examples 
more to the non-miraculous than to the miraculous dispen- 
sation, — both having been alike distinguished, though in very 
different ways, by the signal interposition of the Almighty ? 
The revolution effected by the Reformers was, in the vast- 
ness of its extent and influential bearings on the destinies 
of mankind, next to the first promulgation of Christianity, 
the most important in the history of the world. Surely 
there can be nothing derogatory in our contemplating it in 
order to discover what may be copied I Why look always 
for our patterns to an age, the greatest part of whose doings 
we cannot imitate, because they were miraculous ; and not 
rather to an age, almost all whose doings we may imitate, be- 
cause none of them were miraculous ? Why not, for our exam- 
ples, study the predisposing causes which led to the mighty 
change witnessed by the latter — with the rise, progress, 
and consummation of that change % Why pass over the 
attainable and the imitable, and aim for ever at the unat- 
tainable and the inimitable \ 

You tell us to look at the early propagation of Christianity, 
and mark how all the apostles and their first converts were 
poor ; and yet how, without the important aid of wealth, 
they prevailed : — and you tell us, too, to despise riches as an 
unnecessary or treacherous auxiliary. But you forget that 
they had what was far better, namely, miraculous gifts and 
endowments ; and that these formed a perfect substitute 
for wealth. These however, we have not and cannot emu- 
late. We tell you to look to the Reformation, and mark 
how many of the reformers and their adherents were rich in 
the things of this world, as well as in faith ; and how they 



366 



employed their riches in advancing the cause of Christ. 
These to them formed part of the substitute for miracu- 
lous gifts and endowments ; and their disinterested use of 
them, we of the present day may perfectly imitate. 

Almost all the apostles and early converts were low in 
origin, and mean and despicable in professional occupation ; 
and yet, in the absence of rank and office they prevailed : — 
and we are told to despise the natural influence of both in 
propagating Christianity. But they had an all-sufficient 
substitute in miraculous gifts and endowments ; — these we 
have not, and cannot imitate. Look at the Reformation. 
Numbers of the reformers and their supporters were of 
honourable, many of noble, and a few of even royal descent ; 
and all were led to employ the natural influence of rank and 
station in prospering the cause of Zion. In this too it is 
possible for us to imitate them. 

Almost all the apostles and early converts were wholly 
without power or authority, and yet they prevailed : — and 
we are told to contemn the natural influence of power in 
evangelizing the world. But they had miraculous gifts and 
endowments in place of worldly power, and in this we can- 
not imitate them. Look at the Reformation. How many 
of the reformers were invested with power and authority, — 
electors of provinces and lords of the congregation ! And 
did they not most righteously employ their secular authority 
and influence in promoting the Protestant interests ? In 
this, too, their conduct may be advantageously imitated by 
the great and powerful of the present times. On this head, 
the celebrated author of the Life of Knox, who can be sus- 
pected of heterodoxy by no evangelical body of men, writes 
with equal strength and truth, — " If we attend to the state 
of society in Scotland at that time," — {and the same remark 
is perfectly applicable to the former state of all the conti- 
nental kingdoms, and the present state of the greater part 
of the heathen world,) — " to the almost unbounded power of 
the barons — the vassalage of the people — the ignorance 
which reigned among the lower, and the rarity of education 
among the middle ranks, with other peculiar hindrances to 



367 



the communication of knowledge, we shall be convinced that 
the Reformation, humanly speaking, and without a miracle, 
could not have spread as it did, — the truth could not have 
obtained a fair hearing, nor have come to the knowledge of 
the common people, — if it had not been embraced and pat- 
ronizedby persons of superior rank and means of information." 

Almost all the apostles and early converts were rude, ig- 
norant, unlettered men, and yet they prevailed ; — and we 
are told to repudiate the aid of learning in the warfare with 
Gentile philosophy and superstition. But, in place of learn- 
ing, they had miraculous gifts and endowments as a substi- 
tute ; and in this we cannot emulate them. Look at the 
Reformation. All the leading reformers and their disciples 
were not only learned hut notoriously the most learned men 
of the age. They were the great revivers, and most success- 
ful cultivators, of useful knowledge and science of every kind. 
And these attainments they rendered eminently subservient 
to the advancement of Protestantism. It was by their mas- 
sive and mighty erudition that they assailed and ground to 
powder the stupendous fabric of scholastic subtilties and ec- 
clesiastical tradition ; and, excavating the jewel of truth so 
long buried and lost, held it up once more to the gaze of 
an admiring world. In this sanctified use of literature 
and science we may, if we will, imitate the reformers in our 
present conflict with the gigantic errors and superstitions of 
the nations. And the possession of sound learning we are 
to regard as part of the substitute in place of miracles. 

In short, between the apostolic age and the Reformation 
there is striking parallelism ; but in regard to the secondary 
means employed it is that of marked contrast. In the for- 
mer case, they were the poor, the ignoble, the weak, and 
the ignorant, whom God chose as his instruments in Chris- 
tianizing the world. In the latter, they were the rich, the 
noble, the powerful, and the learned, whom God chose as 
his instruments in restoring a tarnished and almost effaced 
Christianity to pristine purity. In the former, the gift of 
miracles more than compensated for the want of all natural 
advantages : — The absence of such advantages only made 



368 



the interposition of the Almighty more illustriously mani- 
fest ; and made the evidence of His revelation shine with a 
blaze of splendour which was destined to illumine all ages 
of posterity. In the latter case, no fresh exhibition of pre- 
ternatural agency being demanded by the urgencies of the 
Church, the natural advantages of wealth, rank, power, and 
learning, were made to supply the place of miracles. 

Here some unreflecting persons are ever apt to object, 
that, by the employment and operation of natural causes, we 
supersede immediate divine agency. No such thing. True, 
there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that men, once be- 
come really Christians, should employ wealth, rank, power, 
learning, and every other natural advantage in forwarding the 
sacred cause of the Redeemer : neither is it extraordinary 
that the vigorous and extensive employment of these should 
exercise a prodigious influence on the minds of men, in strict 
accordance with the regular constitution of things. But is 
there no room left for the intervention of Omnipotence? Let us 
answer this question by asking another : — Is it natural, — is it 
in accordance with the spontaneous prompting and impulses 
of humanity, that men should freely and voluntarily turn all 
their natural faculties, acquisitions, endowments, honours, and 
influence into the channel of a religion, so pure and holy that 
it convicts all of guilt, and pronounces upon all the sentence 
of condemnation ? Let the scanty largesses of the wealthy, 
the frigid indifference of the noble, the systematic neglect 
of those in authority, and the sardonic scorn and opposition 
of the learned, even in a land nominally Christian furnish the 
reply. That there should be thunder and lightning when the 
heavens are surcharged with the electric fluid ; or a raging 
tempest when a rapid process of rarification somewhere de- 
mands a sudden supply of air to replenish the void ; or refriger- 
ating hailstones in sunshine when there is an excess of cold 
in the higher region of the atmosphere : — in all this there is 
nothing extraordinary. But if all such natural phenomena 
should be exhibited without any of the predisposing natural 
causes, would not the whole be truly miraculous ? — and just- 
ly entitled to be denominated an extraordinary interposi- 



369 

tion of Almighty God I But assuredly the roar of thunder 
and the flash of lightning without the electric fluid; the rag- 
ing of a tempest without any process of rarefaction ; the 
falling of hailstones without any cold, would scarcely be more 
against the ordinary course of nature, or more clearly exhibit 
the immediate agency of Deity, than the free and generous 
employment of wealth rank power and learning, in support 
of a faith which pours contempt upon them all, is contrary to 
the natural feeling and inclinations, the natural desires and 
emotions, of the proud and depraved heart of man. Who 
then inclined the naturally unwilling hearts of so many of 
the rich and noble and mighty and learned, in the time of the 
Reformation, to cast in their several tributes so profusely in- 
to the common cause of truth I Surely it was none other than 
the Spirit of God secretly working in and through them. It 
was altogether the doing of the Lord, and marvellous in our 
eyes. By nature, so desperately wicked is the heart, that to 
incline it to keep God's pure and holy law, and to seek, at the 
sacrifice of all that it naturally most values, to promote the 
cause of truth and righteousness, is surely as much the work 
of Omnipotent grace, as the creation of a world is the work 
of Omnipotent power. For, " as soon could the Ethiopian 
change his skin, or the leopard his spots," as could men by 
their own unaided power, " do good, who are accustomed to 
do evil: 1 

Those, therefore, who would reject the employment of 
wealth rank power or learning, in advancing missions, 
merely because these were not employed in the spread of pri- 
mitive Christianity, — when, at the same time, they cannot 
provide the substitute of miracles, — act as vainly as those who 
would reject the use of medicine, when, at the same time, 
they have no substitute in the miraculous gift of healing. 
As miracles were the substitute for natural and acquired 
advantages in the primitive age; so natural and acquired 
advantages are the substitute for miracles in the present. 
Looking at the history of Providence, and more especially 
at the glorious era of the Reformation, let us resolve to 
consecrate all gifts and attainments to the service of 
God. He who so signally blessed the riches and wealth 

A a 



370 



and power; and above all, the matchless learning of the Re- 
formers, will not withhold the same blessing when these are 
now expended on the war against the thrones and princi- 
palities, the dominions and princedoms of general idola- 
try. And we may rest assured that the man who has most 
natural and acquired advantages, and especially, most know- 
ledge ; and who most devoutly dedicates them all as free-will 
offerings at the shrine of the mission-cause, is the man who 
is likely to be favoured with the greatest success. 

Looking exclusively at the primitive age, and bidding us 
to despise natural advantages, you, in effect, tell us either to 
aim at the possession of extraordinary gifts that are utterly 
unattainable ; or without either natural advantages or the 
apostolic gifts of a miraculous dispensation, you still tell us to 
proceed to the performance of apostolic work ! We look 
at the Reformation age, and without coveting what is un- 
attainable, we bid you aspire to the cultivation and posses- 
sion of those natural advantages and endowments which God 
so eminently blessed under a non-miraculous dispensation. 
And once armed with Reformation gifts, we bid you speed 
all over the world in achieving Reformation work. Which 
of these procedures is most accordant with reason, — with 
Scripture, — with the palpable designs of Providence? Surely if 
confident trust in the use of ordinary means, as if these were 
endowed with inherent efficacy apart from the divine bless- 
ings, be stark Atheism ; the disuse and contempt of all or- 
dinary means, — where God, by denying the extraordinary, de- 
signed these to be employed in His service, in subservience to 
His holy will, — must be practical Atheism and senseless fana- 
ticism combined ! If, in the absence of miracles we dare not 
despise any natural advantages ; if, above all, we cannot ex- 
pect to succeed without a well instructed ministry ; it fol- 
lows, of course, that such a ministry must be prepared. And, 
without miracles, there is no conceivable mode of prepara- 
tion except by the ordinary method of scholastic and Chris- 
tian discipline. 

Here the subject might be brought to a close, were it not 



371 



that the over-scrupulous and inconsistent sticklers for the 
literal form of apostolic example, are ready to resist all evi- 
dence, reject all appeals, and silence all arguments, by the 
most trite of all evasions. Oh, say they, the apostles did not 
establish systems and seminaries of education ! Only figure to 
yourselves the apostles teaching in schools, superintending systems, 
and lecturing in college halls ! If we are called on to do, after 
the apostolic example, what we cannot without apostolic en- 
dowments ; and are again called on to leave undone what 
we well can, merely because in totally different circumstances 
the holy apostles did not do it; — where are we to end? 
What in this case will become of that transcendent favour- 
ite of all who stickle so literally for apostolic example \ Did 
the apostles establish Bible Societies, with their large ma- 
chinery of noble patrons and presidents ; directors, ordi- 
nary and extraordinary ; committees, general and sectional ; 
printing-presses, translation-libraries, and travelling agen- 
cies ? The same question might be put, in reference to 
Sunday schools ; religious book and tract societies ; and, 
in a great measure, all modern missionary societies. Only 
figure to yourselves St Peter and St Paul, and the rest of 
the apostolic band, engaged in wooing the great and the 
mighty and the noble to become patrons, and office-bear- 
ers and members of a Jerusalem Bible Society — burdened 
and overtaxed with the operose literary labour of translation 
— directing the operations of the press — submitting to the 
drudgery of correcting proof-sheets — preparing reports for 
public meetings, and proposing and seconding resolutions on 
the platform ! Is this ridiculous in your eyes ? Not more 
so than your supposition about mission-schools and mission- 
colleges. We insist upon it, that if we must abandon such 
seminaries, merely because the apostles did not at first 
establish any similar institutions, you are under the same 
stringent necessity to abandon the Bible and Tract Socie- 
ties, because the apostles established none ! 

But is it really come to this, that we must sacrifice solid 
sense to tingling sounds— sacrifice the spirit and principles 
of the Gospel, to the form and letter in which these were 



372 



once embodied — and by our copying of both, render the Gospel 
itself as unfit to be the religion of" all nations, 11 — as Judaism, 
or Mahammadanism, or Hinduism ? It cannot be. The advo- 
cate of the Bible Society will tell us, and he will tell us truly, 
that circumstances are wholly changed since the days of the 
apostles. They did not, he will tell us, establish Bible Societies 
like ours,— -first, because they could not, — seeing that many of 
the essential elements in their present constitution and mode of 
operation, had then no existence ; and secondly, because they 
would not, seeing that the profusion of supernatural endow- 
ments at once superseded the necessity of resorting to such 
slow and cumbrous aids. And is not the same remark most 
strictly applicable to schools ? They did not establish schools 
like ours, for two reasons,— -first, because they could not, — 
" Science," as has been truly observed, " science, as then 
taught, was not confined to the Christians, was not useful, 
was not true, did not destroy idolatry, or prepare the way 
for the Gospel, and could be better taught elsewhere. The 
Christians, so far from standing on vantage-ground in regard 
to knowledge, were beneath the heathen ; and a Greek, or 
a Roman, or a Jewish priest, would laugh with scorn at the 
idea of sending his child to a Christian school." Secondly, 
they established no schools, because they would not ; and 
they would not, because they had no need for them. The 
gift of miracles enabled them to do without such aids. And 
to waste their time and energy in conducting scholastic discip- 
line, when in a moment they could communicate the neces- 
sary gifts, were as unwise as it would be for us to dispense 
with that discipline, which is our only means, under the Di- 
vine blessing, of conveying the necessary gifts in the absence 
of miraculous endowments. 

In a word, with the apostles, miraculous gifts and powers 
superseded of necessity, the use of all ordinary means, whe- 
ther Bible, or Tract, or Missionary Societies ; whether Sun- 
day or week-day elementary schools, or higher Collegiate 
institutions. In place of these supernatural endowments, 
we have the press, an improved literature, a true science, 
an enlightened system of education — grand natural advan- 



373 



tages, which the apostles never enjoyed. And shall we not 
employ these, so palpably designed by heaven to be our aux- 
iliaries under an ordinary dispensation, merely because they 
were not possessed and not needed, under an extraordinary 
economy ? 

But we are not left to such reasonings, however conclusive. 
Though in the first instance the apostles employed not the 
engine of education, because they had far more than an 
equivalent substitute in the gift of miracles, we may yet plead 
in its behalf, both scriptural precept and apostolic example. 
In the Law of Moses, the Proverbs of Solomon, the Epistles 
of St Paul, and the Word of God generally, is there no ex- 
press injunction relative to the teaching and training of the 
young ? Those who know their Bibles best, may almost ac- 
cuse us, in putting such a question, of being in jest. Accord- 
ingly, during the earlier part of the Mosaic dispensation, 
besides the domestic training which every Israelite enjoyed, 
we read of the public " schools of the prophets." And to- 
wards the close of that dispensation, we know that every 
synagogue was at once a place of worship for adults, and a 
school of discipline for the young. Nor was the J ewish plat- 
form of juvenile tuition cast aside by the early converts. 
From the very dawn of the Christian era, though apostles 
evangelists and other heaven-endowed men did not engage 
in teaching schools, private Christians, who had no such 
gifts, did not neglect the education of the young. Hear the 
learned and judicious Mosheim on the subject : — " The Chris- 
tians, (during the first century,) took all possible care to ac- 
custom their children to the study of the Scriptures, and to 
instruct them in the doctrines of their holy religion ; and 
schools were every where erected for this purpose, even from the 
very commencement of the Christian Church" 

But there is something still more remarkable, and more 
to our purpose. If our view of educational and other means, 
as the only substitute we possess in place of the gift of mi- 
racles, be correct, what ought we to expect to find towards 
the close of the miraculous age \ Would it not be, among 
other things, the establishment of a more extended and sys- 



374 



tematic course of education ? Now, this is what history 
assures us actually took place. Hear, again, the learned 
Mosheim. After referring to elementary schools, he thus 
proceeds: — "We must not, however, confound the schools de- 
signed only for children with the gymnasia, or academies of the 
ancient Christians, erected in several large cities ; in which 
persons of riper years, especially such as aspired to be public 
teachers, icere instructed in the different branches, both of human 
learning, and of sacred erudition. We may, undoubtedly, at- 
tribute to the apostles themselves, and their injunctions to their 
disciples, the excellent establishments in which the youth, destined 
to the holy ministry, received an education suitable to the solemn 
office they were to undertake. St John erected a school of this 
kind at Ephesus ; and one of the same kind was founded by 
Polycarp at Smyrna. But none of these were in greater 
repute than that which was established at Alexandria, which 
was commonly called the catechetical school, and is generally 
supposed to have been erected by St Mark.'''' What say our 
sticklers for apostolic example, to this ? Here, certainly not 
at the very beginning, but before the close of the apostolic 
age, we find not only schools for children, but gymnasia and 
academies for persons of riper years, where public teachers, 
and especially those destined to the holy ministry, were in- 
structed in the different branches, both of human learning, and 
of sacred erudition ! — and all this under the sanction and 
encouragement of the surviving apostles and their cotempor- 
aries, — the evangelists, and their immediate disciples and 
successors, the apostolic fathers. Here, then, is scriptural 
precept and apostolic example for at least the fundamental 
principle of the very course which we are recommending 
to be pursued ; — and that too arising in the most natural 
order. During the first generation, when miraculous gifts 
superabounded, there was no call for gymnasia or academies 
to educate men for the holy ministry. The necessary 
qualifications were at once miraculously conveyed. And 
as the apostles and their cotemporaries were removed one 
after the other, — and with them the gift of miracles was 
gradually disappearing too, — Christians were obliged, un- 



375 



der the " inj unctions " of the apostles, to betake them- 
selves to the use of ordinary means for rearing and perpe- 
tuating a succession of public teachers and preachers of 
the Word. When the total cessation of miracles ensued, 
they had, in dependence on heaven's blessing to look to 
their gymnasia and academies for fresh supplies. These 
were, in fact, the grand substitute for miracles, under the 
subsequent ordinary dispensation of Providence. And from 
the close of the apostolic age downwards, whence came al- 
most all public teachers? — Whence but from the ancient 
schools ? Whence came the great body of the reformers — 
the men most honoured of God in their evangelistic labours, 
next to the apostles themselves \ — Whence but from the 
schools and seminaries, established in different parts of Eu- 
rope ? Whence do the Christian churches and Missionary 
Societies at present derive supplies, whether for the home 
or the foreign field ? — Whence but from the very same 
sources ? And whence can we expect to receive the thou- 
sands of qualified natives who shall overtake the realms of 
heathenism \ Only from similar sources opened up, and 
bountifully replenished in every land ! 

The third and last of the great measures of evangelization, 

is the TRANSLATION AND CIRCULATION OF THE SACRED SCRIP- 
TURES. Connected with the prosecution of this object, there 
are as many broad fallacies, as many crude and undigested 
notions afloat, as on the subject of education and preaching. 
It is not a little curious that, among the most enthusiastic 
advocates of Bible and Tract circulation, are to be found 
many who are the most hostile to education — as if the 
distributed Bible could be of any avail to a people with- 
out an antecedent education to qualify them for perusing 
it ! — that very education without which we might as well 
send harps to the deaf, or paintings to the blind, as dis- 
perse Bibles among any people wholly destitute of it ! But 
letting that pass, — when once a translation is completed 
in the language of any province, how common, how veryge- 



376 



neral the exclamation, " The Word of God is now thrown 
open to so many millions !" When translations in whole, or 
in part, have been made into all the leading languages and 
dialects of a country like India, how frequent the remark, 
" The Word of God is now thrown open to nearly the whole 
of its inhabitants F From all this, the tacit inference often 
is, that the word of life must be virtually, if not actually, 
scattered like spiritual seed, and diffused like spiritual lea- 
ven over all the Indian continent — and that from this source 
alone, a prodigious harvest of quickened and ripened fruit 
is about to be reaped ! 

Is there not a grand fallacy involved in such large expec- 
tations ? Think of a country suffering from universal famine, 
—to the famine has succeeded universal pestilence. The 
government opens granaries of wholesome provision in cen- 
tral spots. You then exclaim, — " Behold a redundant store 
of nutriment thrown open to the whole empire ! " But what 
a mockery of benevolence were this, when all are so diseased 
that they have no relish, no desire for food, — when the re- 
ception of food might only nurse them the more rapidly for 
the grave \ Well, side by side, you next establish a magazine 
of restorative medicaments ; and you now exclaim, — " Be- 
hold a copious, an overflowing store of balsamic remedies is 
thrown open to the whole land ! " Of what avail is this, if 
almost all the population are so debilitated and stupified 
with disease that they are either unable or unwilling to 
come and receive the necessary supplies % Well, you then 
send quantities of healing drugs indiscriminately to every 
door. But, — there being no kind friend to ply the insensible 
patient,— no skilful physician to administer these drugs ac- 
cording to the phases of the distemper, modified endlessly 
by peculiarities of constitution, and previous dietetic and 
professional habits, — they are wholly overlooked or rejected 
by the majority. Portions swallowed at random by others, 
either effect no good or prove positively injurious, — being 
speedily assimilated with the circulating fluids, or transmuted 
into venom that feeds and inflames the malady. And would 
it materially rescue the scheme from the charge of ineffi- 



377 

ciency and unadaptedness and mockery, to say, that amid a 
million of random chances, one, two, or more, by happy acci- 
dent, did hit upon the appropriate medicine, and experienced 
a cure ? Would a few such cases be enough to entitle the go- 
vernment to persevere in its course, and raise shouts and 
pseans of exultation at their prodigious labours in replenish- 
ing the storehouses, and erecting so vast a machinery for 
scattering masses of their contents ? Oh ! would ye not 
say, would not humanity say, would not reason second the 
appeal, — " Along with your medicines send friendly and 
skilful physicians, who shall examine the patients, probe 
the disease, administer the remedy, watch the effect, re- 
turn again and again, — conducting the recuperative pro- 
cesses to a happy issue. And, having arrested the disease, 
follow it up by a plentiful supply of wholesome food." A 
perfect counterpart all this to the present state of things in a 
country like India, viewed morally and religiously ! For ages 
the land has been smitten with universal spiritual famine — 
famine of the word of life. And, as at once a cause and a 
consequence of the famine, it has been smitten for ages with 
spiritual leprosy and moral pestilence ; so that, from the 
crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is nought 
but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores. By means 
of translations you open in every province a depository of 
Bibles, — replenished at once with healing balm for every dis- 
ease, and bread of heaven to nourish the renovated soul. 
You then exclaim, — " Behold a superabounding storehouse 
of the word of life, thrown open to all kindreds and tribes !" 
Ah, but what avails it when every where the people, impotent 
and miserable through famine and disease, are both unable 
and unwilling to come and be supplied. The soul is sick 
and loathes wholesome food. Ere its taste and appetite can 
return, you must remove the disease. Well, overflow- 
ing with compassion, you then empty the depositories and 
disperse bales of the written word, wholesale, over the 
land : —raising the shout,—" All India is now supplied." 
Ah ! but without a friendly advocate and skilful physi- 
cian, the greater part is cast away as vile and worthless, 



378 



Indiscriminately received and unskilfully applied by others, 
the balsam of life is often neutralized in its effects, — the 
very bread of life often assimilated with the ordinary ali- 
ment of an impure and filthy superstition, or speedily trans- 
formed by the acting of virulent disease, into a mass of 
putrescence as loathsome as the disease itself. And is it 
enough, in order to shield the defective procedure, and call 
forth the shout of gratulation, that, by some apparently 
happy hit or fortuitous coincidence, out of thousands of 
cases, one, two, or more have stumbled on the suitable balm, 
and been healed, and acquired a relish for the heavenly 
manna ? No, no. Such a system must be regarded as radi- 
cally defective. Why not, with the abundant supplies of 
the pharmacopwia of evangelical truth, send forth the skilful 
physician — the living evangelist to persuade, to urge, to 
probe, and to examine,— to minister and apply, to watch the 
varying symptoms and meet the varying demands, and direct 
towards a successful issue ? And having done so, then, in 
the strength of the Lord, accompany and follow up the 
whole restorative process by a redundant supply of the hea- 
venly nutriment ! 

From all this what is the inference designed to be drawn \ 
It is, that in a country like India, — drenched with the bitter 
and foul waters of every moral malady, saturated to the very 
core with the filth and mire of idolatrous abominations, — 
the translation and circulation of the Bible should not, as 
the general rule, be the precursor, but the concomitant and the 
consequent of an assiduously taught and a successfully preached 
Gospel. When, through the educational and other evange- 
listic means employed, a work of preparation has been con- 
ducted, and a race of superiorly qualified native labourers 
has, through God's blessing, been reared, let these be every 
where dispersed and located as the teachers and preachers 
of the everlasting Gospel. Let the quickening energy of 
their living voice arouse the slumbering and stir up the 
dead, alarm the careless and direct the wandering, create 
new desires and awake new longings, furnish new tastes 
and stimulate to new inquiries. Let doubts be removed, 



379 



difficulties solved, mistakes corrected, errors exposed, 
and delusions dissipated. Let the soul be healed by the 
touch of the wise and kind physician, accompanied by the 
efficacious influences of the Holy Spirit. Then let an abun- 
dance of copies of God's Word be supplied ; and they will 
nourish, edify, and build up for eternity ; as well as awake, 
excite, direct, and guide others, by witnessing the effect on 
their fellows. Then, will Bibles be distributed with infinite 
profit and advantage. Every copy will produce some result 
more or less of excellent tendency. None will be wholly lost. 

A second inference is, that, if the Bible, as the general 
rule, should accompany or follow, rather than precede, a 
faithfully and efficiently proclaimed salvation, the main 
strength of no mission should, in the first instance, be given to 
the task of translation. Whatever is absolutely necessary 
for conducting operations should be done, and no more. 
The strength of the mission should be given to the training 
of the young, and preaching to the adults, and especially to 
the rearing up of those who can, with zeal and skill and dis- 
cretion, go forth with the Word of Life in their hands, — its 
Spirit reigning in their hearts, — its message of terror to 
alarm and message of mercy to allure, on their lips. The 
work of translation might then keep pace with the prepara- 
tion for its really profitable reception. Does not this seem 
to have been the order uniformly observed by Divine Provi- 
dence itself in the first grand encounter of Christianity with 
the Polytheism of the Gentile nations I Where do we read 
of copies of the Scriptures being circulated among the idola- 
ters before the preacher arrived amongst them to awaken, 
expostulate, and expound % Though holy men were miracu- 
lously endowed of God every where to preach in the different 
languages of the earth, where do we read of translations of 
the Scriptures having been made, either miraculously or 
by ordinary means, during the period of the Gospel's first 
proclamation, and awful struggle with idolatry \ Nowhere. 
Always, and in all countries, the living voice was the herald, — 
written epistles followed at a considerable interval of time, 
— and translations succeeded in the distant train. 



380 

And is it not specially remarkable, that, while the apostles 
were miraculously endowed to 'preach to all people in their 
own tongue, they were not directed by heaven to write the 
Gospels in all tongues, or even to pen their epistles in the ver- 
nacular languages of the Churches or communities to which 
these were addressed ? It was most natural and befitting, 
that the Epistle to the Corinthians should be written in 
Greek, —but why the Epistle to the Komans in Greek, and 
not rather in Latin ? — or, that to the Ephesians in Greek, 
and not rather in the vernacular language of Ephesus ? 
Surely He who had instantaneously qualified them to preach 
in all languages, could have enabled them to write in all 
languages, or translate into all languages, if He had so 
willed. Then why was the one done, and the other left 
undone ? The chief reason may be to us inscrutable ; but 
one natural cause we may conjecture as at least probable. 
The Bible abounds with principles and truths which it had 
not entered into the heart of man to conceive, and which con- 
sequently it never fell to his lips spontaneously to express. It 
also abounds with principles and truths, which, as they were 
once revealed and traditionally preserved, may be found 
scattered up and down the world in corrupt or distorted 
forms, or counterfeited in mimic errors. And as language is 
nothing else than the conventional expression of the feelings, 
and thoughts, and general knowledge of any people ; it bears 
every where not only a precise and definite proportion, but 
an absolute equality and parallelism of extent to the current 
range and nature of feeling, thoughts, and knowledge. Be- 
tween the conception and information of any people, and 
the representative sounds and symbols constituting the lan- 
guage of that people, there is a perfect identity in extent 
and signification. Hence it must be at once obvious that 
in introducing, for the first time, the truths and principles re- 
vealed in the Bible to the notice of any distinct tribe, through 
the medium of its own vernacular language, — a change must 
be effected in the language proportioned to the revolution t o be 
effected in the sentiments of the people. If erroneous impres- 
sions of the nature of man and the character of God,— erro- 



381 



neous impressions of the origin and destiny of the species, — 
erroneous impressions of reciprocal relations, and civil and 
religious duties, — if all must be corrected, purified, and en- 
larged ; — there must be a corresponding change in the mean- 
ing and use of words. If all former knowledge is to be new- 
modelled, and much to be new-created ; there must be a 
corresponding modification of old terms, — a revival of obso- 
lete words with new meanings, — or a large infusion of vo- 
cables entirely new, — vocables, it may be, of foreign growth, 
or indigenous roots variously combined and manufactured 
into new compounds. 

When Christianity began to be propagated, there was no lan- 
guage in the world through which to convey it, — without that 
language undergoing a radical change, by the attaching of new 
meanings to old words, and the copious infusion of terms whol- 
ly new, — except the Hebrew, or Hebraic Greek of the Alex- 
andrian and other schools of Hellenizing Jews. Of the two 
the preference was given to the latter, on account of the pre- 
valence, or universality of its diffusion over the civilized world. 
This language, — the growth of apparently nothing beyond a 
train or series of natural causes and circumstances, — seemed 
specially prepared by Divine Providence for its highest and 
noblest use, as the medium of communicating the last and most 
perfect expression of the Divine will to mankind. The J ews 
having been chosen as the special depositories of revelation, 
their language became its adapted and befitting medium. 
When the spirit of commercial enterprise dispersed the 
tribes of the " peculiar people" over all the Grecian cities and 
their colonial dependencies, they gradually formed a new dia- 
lect, whose prevailing idiom was Hebrew, but the staple of 
whose vocabulary was Greek. Incorporating with its terms, 
all the conceptions and ideas peculiar to the Jews as a people, 
— because derived by them from those holy oracles, the exclu- 
sive possession of which constituted their chiefest glory, — this 
Judaized Grecian dialect soon became moulded and fashioned 
into as proper a vehicle of Divine Revelation as the Hebrew 
itself. And when it had been thus prepared by the overrul- 
ing providence of God, the entire Hebrew Scriptures were 



382 



translated into it ; and clothed in this new garb, these were 
ever afterwards renowned under the well-known designation 
of the Septuagint. The Septuagint Greek, therefore, was 
the only language generally understood, which could at once, 
without any alteration, convey the mind of the Spirit to man. 
Classical Greek, though of all languages then known, the 
most flexible and copious, would not answer so well ; because, 
— saturated throughout with the spirit of a polytheistic my- 
thology, and pervaded by the genius of a false and atheistic 
philosophy, — its terms were preoccupied and wedded to an 
endless variety of connected ideas, associated meanings, and 
suggested inferences, arising from these fertile antichristian 
sources. 

When an apostle or evangelist addressed in person, and 
with his living voice, any individual or audience, — in employ- 
ing the words of a vernacular dialect in new senses, or in coin- 
ing and introducing new terms to express aright the new ideas, 
he could act as his own interpreter. He could explain and 
define ; he could vary his illustrative figures, similes, and 
images ; and by familiar intercourse discovering mistakes, 
he could reiterate explanations, till at last the new meanings 
were fairly fastened or engrafted on the dialect, and the 
new words understood in consequence of the apprehension 
and lodgment of the new ideas. It is plain that at least one 
whole generation must pass away, ere the dialect could be 
filtered from its heathenism and ripened into an adequate 
medium for the embodiment of pure unadulterated truth. So 
long as those lived who spoke the language when the vehicle 
only of heathenism, their use of it would be distracted by 
the perpetual and obstinate recurrence of former notions 
and opinions. By teaching their children, however, the lan- 
guage after it had become the vehicle of very different ideas, 
these would grow up, knowing it practically only in its new 
form as an improved medium of speech, and having their 
minds undisturbed by the associated antichristian tenets 
and prejudices which, to the day of death, must have haras- 
sed and kept their fathers in bondage. But it would be 
very different with a dead translation. It could not stop 



383 



to define and explain the new use of old terms, or the mean- 
ing of exotic ones : — or if it even did, it could not, on the 
recurrence of fresh misconceptions, reiterate the exposition 
in new forms ; and then in other forms again, till at last 
the people were disciplined, like children under scholastic 
tuition, into a perfect understanding of them. 

May we not here discover a solution of the enigma, — why, 
though the apostles were privileged to preach in every lan- 
guage, they were not commissioned to write or translate the 
oracles of God in every language \ 

In their time, the only general language, — furnished by its 
previous embodiment of revealed truth with fixed appropri- 
ate vocal sounds or written symbols, being Judaized Greek, 
— that was employed as the sole medium of inspiration. In 
the meantime, that God, who agreeably to the adage is never 
known to " interfere beyond the exigency," was, in the course 
of Providence, rapidly preparing, by a grand, wide, extended, 
and simultaneous process, abundance of other media. Did He 
not first qualify and send forth proper agents, every where 
to proclaim by the living voice the truths of Revelation, and 
every where to be present to interpret, define, enforce, and 
reiterate, till at last the languages became modified, extend- 
ed and improved, — in a word, Christianized, — and therefore 
ripened into fit media for communicating divine knowledge 
without leading to any misconceptions beyond what must ever 
arise from the common ignorance of the natural understand- 
ing and the common perverseness of the depraved heart? And 
then, but not till then, do we find Christians seriously be- 
take themselves to the task of translating the Scriptures into 
the different languages and dialects of the world. Where, 
in the whole history of primitive times, is there an instance 
of the Bible being translated into any language or dialect ; 
before the people who spoke that language were at least 
partially Christianized ; and the language, therefore, new- 
moulded into a form better fitted for the written expression 
of Divine truth ? 

And have not we, in these latter days, — in carrying on 
precisely the same kind of contest with the polytheism and 



884 



paganism of the earth, — nothing to learn from this most 
noticeable and most memorable order and succession in the 
procedure of Divine Providence in primitive times I Has 
J ehovah set us the example of sending forth men — not first 
to translate His oracles into languages, which, in order to 
the expression of these oracles, must be more or less revolu- 
tionized, — and which, even when so moulded, must be more 
or less unintelligible to those whose notions and opinions re- 
main unchanged, and who require interpreters to prevent 
endless misconceptions ? Has He, on the contrary, set us the 
example of sending forth qualified men first to proclaim the 
Gospel message with the living voice ? — And when the senti- 
ments of a people have been revolutionized and their language 
has become the natural vehicle of these sentiments, has He 
then in the course of His providence supplied the means of 
embodying revelation in the new modified language to be 
dispersed among the population at large \ — If so, is it well 
for us so often actually to invert the order of this proce- 
dure, and act in apparent opposition to such an example I 

As a conterpoise, so far, to this view of the case, shall we 
be told of Luther' s translation of the Bible ; and the influ- 
ence exerted by it on the Eeformation ? The case is not at 
all parallel. Rightly understood, instead of weakening, it 
greatly strengthens the view now taken. To make the cases 
parallel, all Germany must be supposed to be in a condition 
of unbroken heathenism — the very condition in which its in- 
habitants were, as set forth in the inimitably condensed and 
graphic delineations of Tacitus. But Germany was not so cir- 
cumstanced in the time of Luther. Germany had been Chris- 
tianized ages before. It had indeed sunk like other nations 
under the grinding yoke of a spiritual despotism, which smo- 
thered Divine truth under a mountain load of fables, legends, 
traditions, and all the varied coinages, new wrought, new 
stamped, and new issued from the ten thousand mints of 
monkery. But, still, Germany was nominally Christian; 
and its language had long been Christianized. That lan- 
guage was, therefore, fit at once to become the vehicle of 
Christian revelation. And when the translation was made, 



385 



thousands and tens of thousands were not only predisposed, 
but burning with eagerness to receive, study, and digest its 
contents. Can any thing of all this be alleged in regard to 
any of the heathen nations, when first visited by Protestant 
missionaries 2 Rather, may not, must not every thing 
the very reverse of this, be truly predicated of them all ? 
If so, is it not worse than idle to appeal to the Lutheran 
achievement as furnishing a model, a defence, an apology for 
attempting to imitate the same in all other circumstances, 
however different or even opposite I 

From all this, what is the legitimate deduction ? Is it 
not that, as the general rule, in heathen lands the Gospel 
taught or preached by the living voice ought to precede 
the Gospel translated, printed, and circulated in dumb dead 
letter ? How closely the published Gospel ought to accom- 
pany, or how immediately it ought to follow in the train of 
its proclamation by the living voice, whether to young or 
old, must depend on a thousand varying events— modified 
by a thousand unforeseen circumstances — which must be left 
to the judgment, discretion, and wisdom of him who proclaims 
it. It is only when curiosity has been awakened, inquiry 
excited, an habituation contracted with new ideas and with 
the use and meaning of the terms which convey these, that 
the Bible can be promiscuously circulated with real profit ; or 
can be expected to realize great, striking, or memorable re- 
sults. Hence, again, we repeat, as the general rule, that the 
strength of a, first mission to any heathen land, ought to be 
given to the oral inculcation of the Gospel, whenever, when- 
ever, and in whatever form that can best be done, rather 
than to translation. Hence, the non-necessity of such huge 
solicitude, and vast preparations, and lavish expenditure on 
translation, at the outset. In the first instance, let the general 
mind be awakened, and a demand for the Word created, and 
translations will spring up with the onward tide — at compara- 
tively little trouble or expense. Prepare translations before 
the set time, and they may moulder in depositories, or be scat- 
tered like grain to decay on Alpine rocks, or be choked like 
seed in an Indian jungle. Prepare them against the set time, 

Bb 



386 



when newly implanted dispositions and preparatory trains of 
sentiment, a full or partial reception of proclaimed truths, 
and a familiarity with adapted terms have paved the way, 
cleared the wilderness, and prepared a soil, — and the circu- 
lation may be blessed like that of Luthers German version. 

Sooner or later there must be translations. And an- 
other question of paramount importance is, Who are to he 
the translators ? — Foreign Christian missionaries, or Chris- 
tianized natives ?— As the general rule, we fearlessly avow our 
sober conviction, that the translators who shall produce 
complete and permanent versions in any language, must be 
—not foreigners, but educated natives. Hitherto, on this 
momentous subject, the prevailing idea seems to have been 
different. Perhaps not in set terms or formal resolutions, 
but tacitly and virtually, the scheme of translation equally 
with that of preaching, has been conducted as if it could 
best be carried on by Europeans. Hence, in one way or other, 
between the salaries of missionaries and those of their native 
assistants, with libraries printing presses and other appara- 
tus, an immense proportion of missionary funds has from the 
first been expended on translations. Admitting as we do 
with our whole heart that the motives of all concerned were 
the purest, the noblest, and the most disinterested which 
could have actuated human breasts, the results of forty years 
allow us to ask the question, Whether such expenditure was 
in the most natural order of Providence I It may have been 
so ; but the day may come when a different verdict will be 
awarded by dear-bought experience. Notwithstanding the 
great expenditure of learning and talent, of time and strength 
and pecuniary resources, there is scarcely one of the twenty 
or thirty versions into the languages of India, which promises 
to stand out half a century ; or is likely ever to become the 
standard version in the language. When educated native 
Christians arise to undertake the task, all the present trans- 
lations may drop into oblivion.— That is, when the time 
comes in which they can be turned to really profitable ac- 
count, it may be necessary wholly to supersede them by others 
more perfect ;— and before that time, the good they effect may 



387 



be too infinitesimally small to admit of serious comparison 
with the large means expended. So that time, strength, and 
money, may have in a great measure been thrown away. 
Before the set time arrives, translations must be compara- 
tively unproductive ; — when that time comes, most of them 
may be superseded altogether. Tell us not, that though un- 
likely to prove lasting, these have done much towards pre- 
paring the way for such as shall be permanent. That we 
do not doubt. Already they have done so very materially. 
The real question is, Whether the time, strength, and re- 
sources lavished on them might not have been so expended 
as to have prepared the way still more speedily and effectu- 
ally 8 Say, that the half or third part, or any other very 
considerable proportion of missionary labour has been de- 
voted to translating, superintending the press, &c. — the 
question is, Whether that strength might not have been 
employed in some other way better calculated to accelerate 
the time when translations would be extensively useful, — 
better calculated to raise up and create the instrumentality 
which might speedily produce them in half the time, at a 
mere fraction of the expense, and with tenfold greater ac- 
curacy ? If most of the time and strength were devoted to 
the rearing up of those who would agitate the native mind by 
the teaching and preaching of the Gospel,— the time might 
be greatly hastened when a real demand would exist for the 
written word, and a real preparation for getting it translat- 
ed in the best form. There is not an argument demonstra- 
tive of the superiority of educated natives over educated 
foreigners as teachers or preachers of the Gospel, which does 
not hold true with still greater force respecting able trans- 
lators of the Gospel. Where is the instance on record of 
a foreigner having supplied a really successful standard ver- 
sion of so difficult a work as the Bible in a strange tongue? 
If any such there be, it must form a rare exception indeed 
to the general rule. No,— all history, all experience, a thou- 
sand failures proclaim, with one united voice, that, as the 
general rule, natives — qualified natives alone, — can be the 
trustworthy translators into their own vernacular tongues. 



388 



Now, how can native translators be raised up duly quali- 
fied for the task ? How, except by the same course of large 
and comprehensive instruction which confers his qualifica- 
tions upon the teacher or the preacher, — with such specific 
additions as the peculiarities of the task may demand ? Let 
us then labour to rear up teachers and preachers. The 
process which invests them instrumentally in the hands of 
God's Spirit with the requisite endowments, is shaking the 
fabric of Hinduism to its centre. When they go forth, the 
concussion extends in its effects. A demand will be creat- 
ed for the word of life. The dialect will be rapidly enriched 
by the incorporation of new terms ; and the unheathenizing 
of old ones. Let us seize the critical, — yet precious moment. 
Let us single out those who may excel in language and criti- 
cism ; and let us set them apart for the arduous yet noble 
task of transfusing not merely the letter, but the spirit of 
God's holy oracles into their own native tongues. 

To excel as a translator of the Bible, is a task of vastly 
greater difficulty than nine-tenths of professing Christians 
can possibly comprehend. He who undertakes it should be 
a first-rate Biblical critic. To be a thorough Biblical critic 
demands a general scholarship at once extensive and pro- 
found. On this subject there is often a confusion of ideas. 
It is not necessary that the majority, or any large propor- 
tion of believers, should be Biblical critics. Enough for the 
vastly preponderating mass, that the great outlines of re- 
vealed truth should be so broadly marked, — so congruous with 
the divine perfections, so admirably adapted to the real 
wants and necessities of man, — that they cannot be mistaken 
by the humble and simple hearted inquirer, who may have 
no guide but a translation, and never can consult the origi- 
nal at all. One of this most numerous class may well ex- 
claim : — " Some have doubted the existence of external ob- 
jects, of companions and friends, of meadows and lawns, of 
hillg and valleys, of fountains and streams, of sun, moon, and 
stars. But so long as I feel delighted, refreshed, and exhi- 
larated, amid the socialities, the beauties, and the bounties 
of earth and heaven, I shall not be disturbed by the follies 



389 



and frivolities of men, who seem anxious to prove, by ex- 
ample, that of all imaginable contradictions, their own con- 
duct furnishes the one of most consummate folly. In like 
manner there have been in all ages, and there will still be, 
religious sceptics. But while, — with my eyes directed to- 
wards the wide domains of Divine truth, verdant with beauty 
and teeming with life ; and more especially towards the Sun 
of Righteousness that irradiates these bright realms, — I feel 
the clamours of conscience pacified, the fears of guilt remov- 
ed, the burden of sin lightened : — while my aspirations de- 
light to ascend to the throne of the Lamb, and return in 
streams of refreshment and unmingled bliss : — while, in the 
fruition of such undeserved tokens of mercy here, and the full 
assurance of being privileged to drink of the very rivers of 
God's pleasures in the New Jerusalem, my heart overflows 
with gratitude, and my lips with songs of praise, — can I, oh, 
can I with the freezing suspiciousness of guilty nature, question 
the love of God the Father, the all-sufficiency of the Redeem- 
er's sacrifice, or the quickening influences of the Blessed Spi- 
rit i Impossible." But however true that the great leading 
doctrines of Revelation are so potent and so clear, as to be 
capable of producing only one persuasion in the minds of all 
really devout believers in every age, it is not less true that 
the Bible which contains them is wrapt up in ancient dead 
languages, — and that to interpret these aright, and repre- 
sent their genuine import and full force through the medium 
of other tongues, challenges the exercise of the strongest in- 
tellect, amply replenished with all the furniture of human 
learning, as well as divine. When a man is favoured with 
such high endowments, he is qualified to excel as a Biblical 
critic : — and when he does so, then, but not till then, is he 
fully equipped to assume the delicate and onerous office of 
transfusing the precise spirit and meaning of the peculiar 
phraseology of the sacred authors, into terms and idioms of 
like significancy in another tongue. 

To raise up natives qualified after this sort, must be the 
work of time. But the general preparation for the ultimate 
appearance of faithful and successful translators, as well as 



390 



for turning their labours to profitable account, is rapidly 
progressing. So that by the time they do appear, an effec- 
tual door will be opened for their noblest exertions. Then 
will the services of Brahman Pandits, — whose minds, tinged 
and tinctured with heathenism, cannot fully comprehend 
evangelical doctrines, or know when these are accurately re- 
presented by their own vernacular symbols, — be wholly and 
for ever discarded. Learned native Christians will worthily 
supply their place. Combining in themselves all the commu- 
nicable advantages of the learned European Christian, with 
all the incommunicable advantages of the learned native 
Christian, these may be expected, as agents in the hands of 
God's Spirit, to prepare translations which shall be intelli- 
gibly read by myriads of awakening inquirers, and shall en- 
dure as exhaustless depositories of the " bread of life," 
throughout all generations. 

The grand and only adequate remedy for the miseries 
of India, temporal and spiritual, is the Gospel of salvation, 
brought home and sealed through the energy of God's Holy 
Spirit ; — that omnipotent energy, without whose operation 
on the soul, there can be no real conviction of the evil and 
danger of sin — no real experience of that " godly sorrow," 
which is so essential an element in the " repentance to 
salvation" — no forthputting of that faith which is the in- 
strument of receiving and resting in the imputed righteous- 
ness of a Divine Redeemer — no perception of the excellency of 
that knowledge of Christ which alone can savingly enlighten 
the understanding, or savingly impress the heart — no lively 
apprehension of the surpassing glories of the character and 
attributes of the Triune J ehovah, as manifested in the works 
of creation, providence, and redemption — no participation in 
that holiness of heart and life and conduct, which is a restora- 
tion of the image of the Godhead, and the sure prelude and 
preparation for everlasting bliss, — no joyous assurance of a 
covenant interest in that inheritance which " eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 



391 



of man to conceive; 1 But while we rejoice in proclaiming 
these transcendent verities, we must never forget that in 
bringing the Gospel fairly within reach of the souls of men,— 
there to be lodged and rendered efficacious by the influences 
of the Almighty Spirit of all grace— means must be instru- 
mentally employed;— means directly appointed and providen- 
tially sanctioned by heaven itself ;— means which, when applied 
in simple absolute unqualified dependence on the efficacious 
blessing of the Holy Spirit, cannot fail eventually to issue 
in a harvest of fruit for immortality. 

The three generic means already referred to are, the 
Christian education of the young ; the preaching of the Gospel to 
adults; and the translation and circulation of the Word of Life. 
The main practical question is, How each of these is to be 
rendered most potent and influential in accomplishing the 
grand end in view ; namely, the speedy and effectual diffu- 
sion of the knowledge of salvation throughout the entire 
mass of the people 2 In the answer which we have endea- 
voured to furnish to this question, applicable respectively 
to each of the three principal means, all the great lines seem 
to converge and unite as in one focus of concentrated light. 

Do we desire to turn the Christian education of the young 
to the most profitable account I We ought, in the first in- 
stance, as much as possible to restrict the range of mere ele- 
mentary instruction, and to communicate an augmented quan- 
tity of knowledge to a select number ; in order that through 
the instrumentality of the thoroughly educated few, we may 
most rapidly and effectually reach and vitally impress the un- 
educated many. Do we desire to insinuate the elements of all 
truth into the vitals of the social and religious system, and 
thus produce a loosening, a fermentation, and a preparedness 
for change? We can do this with the readiest and most power- 
ful effect, through the medium of highly educated natives. Do 
we desire to see the everlasting Gospel proclaimed, as speedily 
as possible, in the happiest harmony with existing circum- 
stances and with the mightiest energy, to the teeming millions 
of India 2 We can only expect to realize so glorious a con- 
summation through the agency of duly qualified natives. Do 



392 



we desire to witness the blessed Word of God translated with 
purity and precision, into all the dialects and languages of 
India ? We can never behold this glorious end satisfactorily 
achieved, except through the instrumentality of natives, en- 
riched with all the stores of human learning, as well as the 
treasures of Divine grace. From all this, what is the legi- 
timate, the inevitable conclusion ? Is it not, that the rearing 
of a race of natives so superiorly gifted, under the continual 
guidance and plentiful blessing of the Holy Spirit, ought no 
longer to be reckoned a secondary and subordinate, but a 
primary and paramount object, in every missionary enter- 
prise I 

Here we may be met by many saying, " Why all this ado 
about Christian education, and the necessity of native la- 
bourers \ — as if these were unheard-of novelties. Have not 
all the great societies long had schools in operation, and 
native teachers, catechists, preachers, and translators ? Why 
then all this hue and cry?" Confessedly there have been, 
for more than a century past in India, both native schools 
and native labourers. And we bless and magnify the name 
of our God, for any and all the real good which these may 
have been honoured instrumentally to achieve. There have 
been, and still are, native schools ; but what we complain of 
is that, till of late years, and for the most part even now, these 
are not of the description w T hich the necessities of India pecu- 
liarly demand. There have been, and there are, native labour- 
ers ; but what we complain of is that, till of late years, and for 
the most part even now, these are not of the description which 
the necessities of India imperatively demand. So much the 
contrary, that we do not hesitate again to repeat what 
we have a thousand times reiterated both in India and in 
Britain, that the grand desideratum in the present system of 
Indian missions is the want of a really superior and thoroughly 
efficient native agency ; and that the capital source of the compa- 
rative failure and languishing condition of most of our older 
missionary stations, has been the want of a well-contrived, skil- 
fully adapted, regularly systematised, and vigorously and per- 
severingly prosecuted effort to raise up such a race of native 



393 



labourers — endowed with the graces of God's Spirit in happy 
and harmonious conjunction with the highest qualifications which 
the united wisdom, learning, and piety of the Christian Church 
can bestow. 

Scattered over journals, platform speeches, anniversary 
sermons, and periodical reports, we do meet with passing 
hints and notices, strong expressions and isolated statements 
on this subject. But these, on the whole, have proved aim- 
less, pointless, objectless ; and, accordingly, have terminated 
in no real practical result, in any degree corresponding 
with the multiplying wants of India. Many an individual 
missionary has keenly felt and honestly recorded his expe- 
rience and resolution somewhat after the style and spirit of 
the humble, pious, and devoted Felix Neff, who, towards the 
close of his most laborious and successful ministrations, thus 
writes : — " I foresaw with sorrow that the Gospel which I 
had been permitted to preach in these mountains would not 
only not spread, but might even be lost, unless something 
should be done to promote its continuance. I bethought me 
how it might be preserved in some degree ; and after mature 
deliberation, I determined to become a training-master, and to 
form a winter school, composed of the most intelligent and well- 
disposed young men of the different villages of my parish," &c. 
Like Felix Neff, many a missionary has become, single-handed 
and alone, " the training-master" of one or more promising 
youth ; but, like Neff, has speedily fallen, and left that work 
unaccomplished, which alone would " leave permanent effects 
of his ministry behind him when he should be removed from 
the scene of action." His successor, — it may be, with less 
experience, or entertaining different views, — not following 
out the plan, it has dropped, and ended in nothing. Again, 
one or more missionaries, of superior discernment, may have 
experienced a similar want, and may have united in project- 
ing the larger plan of a mission-college. But, from some in- 
herent defects in the system adopted, or inefficiency in the 
developement of some of its parts, or want of sufficient ac- 
knowledgment, as well as of a full, frank, and cordial co- 
operation from home ; or from the missionaries having their 



394 



hands too full of other things, and giving but scraps and 
fragments of their time and attention to it ; or from a con- 
stant interruptedness in the succession of men of superior 
endowments and congenial minds to conduct it ; or from 
the contractedness of the range of topics embraced, and 
the too great brevity of the proposed curriculum of attend- 
ance — from one, or more, or all of these, and other causes 
united, no educational course in India has hitherto succeed- 
ed in rearing the natives who are destined to be its reform- 
ing evangelists. Even in Southern India, after the labours 
of more than a century, what is the longest, loudest, and 
most frequent cry 2 Is it not the want of able and trust- 
worthy native agents I And what is the usual appendix to 
the expression of this want ? Is it not an expression of 
wonder, how and why this should be the case I It were well, 
when the cry is again raised, to try to suppress the appendix. 
Instead of continuing to wonder that no agents have ap- 
peared, — when all the while there has been an almost total 
neglect of the only efficient means of rearing them, — let the 
friends of missions vigorously betake themselves to the task 
of instituting the preparatory means. Surely it must be ad- 
mitted that there is something egregiously wrong or funda- 
mentally deficient in the general system, when, after the 
labours of more than a century, and the apparent evangeliza- 
tion of whole villages, a large proportion of the teachers in mis- 
sion-schools are still heathen idolaters ; — and when it is freely 
confessed that of the native catechists and preachers there are 
scarcely any possessed of that range of information, that ex- 
tent of literary scientific and theological resources, which could 
enable them to advance the work altogether independent of 
the guidance of Europeans, or enable them to stand and per- 
severe, were the latter suddenly removed I Mere faith, mere 
zeal, mere piety, mere spiritual experience, however indispen- 
sable as essentials and concomitants, can never form, in the 
candidate for the ministerial office, an adequate substitute, or, 
indeed, any substitute at all, for mental cultivation, — for the 
communicated knowledge, and the varied preparations and 
endowments which an enlarged Christian education can confer. 



395 



But if in Southern India, or elsewhere, the mighty task 
of training natives in right earnest is yet to be begun, it will 
not do to make of it a secondary or subordinate object, 
either in the view of the society at home, or in the estima- 
tion of the missionary abroad. Occasional, scattered, de- 
sultory, isolated, interrupted efforts will never answer the 
end ; whether on the part of individuals, or small fraterni- 
ties, or voluntary societies, or National Churches. There 
must be plan and system, disposition and arrangement. At 
home, it must be freely and fearlessly represented in the 
pulpit and on the platform, as a prime work. Individuals 
must be selected to conduct it abroad, from their special fit- 
ness for the task. These must not fritter away their time 
and strength on a thousand miscellaneous occupations, — re- 
serving for the educational course only fragments of time, and 
shreds of mental energy. No ! a due proportion of the very 
flower of their time and strength must be devoted to it. 
The saying must be adopted and converted into a standing 
maxim, that " between doing the thing efficiently, and not 
doing it at all, there is no admissible medium." Those 
whose understandings are dispersed over a multitude of 
themes, can never do real justice to any. Those whose hands 
are full of manifold labours, can never give more than the 
dregs of their strength to any. No ; they must throw their 
whole soul into the system. There must be thorough work. 
Those who are destined to influence others, as teachers or 
preachers, must be thoroughly grounded. In order to this, 
the missionary must have the pupils under his own eye — not 
for a few hours in the week, — not for a few months, — not 
for one, two, or three years, — but for eight, ten, twelve, or 
even fifteen years. He must at every turn and winding 
come into closest contact with their understandings and 
hearts, — not merely in the public class-room, but in the soli- 
tary chamber. He must not rest satisfied with imparting 
the treasures of knowledge, human and divine. He must 
not teach or preach merely : — He must train. And he 
must not train merely on stated occasions, but habitually. 
The instructor must maintain an intercommunion of mind 



396 



with mind, that is free, open, generous — condescending to 
his pupils' weakness, infirmity, prejudice, without seeming 
to condescend. He must — in prayerful dependence on 
divine grace — by his familiar conversation, as much as by 
his formal teaching, — by his secret exhortation and prayer, 
as much as by public preaching, — by his example in pri- 
vate, as well as his conduct in the open arena of life, — 
gradually impress upon them the stamp and image of his 
own mind, — that loftiness of principle, that disinterested- 
ness of benevolence, that elevation of sentiment, — that zeal 
without indiscretion, that firmness without obstinacy, that 
courage without rashness, that ardour without intemperance, 
that gentleness without over-pliancy, that accommodative- 
ness without compromise, that enthusiasm without any vio- 
lation of the dictates of common sense, — that moral heroism 
which can smile in the midst of affliction and suffering, and 
rejoice in the prospect of death : — in fine, all the Christian 
graces efflorescing on the robust stock and framework of 
European character, nursed and nurtured as that has been 
amid the countless combined influences of the purest reli- 
gion, the highest civilization, the noblest science, and the 
most accurately recorded experience of ages. Let the Eu- 
ropean missionary be privileged, through God's blessing, 
to rear and send forth a few native labourers thus quali- 
fied, — each of whom will be able to teach, preach, or trans- 
late, with an effect surpassing his own ability, and who 
dare refuse to him the honoured title of missionary ? If he 
had brought a few common wanderers into the fold, would 
he not have been said to have discharged well the functions 
of an Ambassador of the Cross I If, instead of simply bring- 
ing a few wanderers into the fold, he has also succeeded, 
through God's blessing, in endowing them with power to go 
forth and call in other wanderers, — thus multiplying his own 
individual ability, not by units, but by decades and tens of 
decades, — has he not achieved a vastly greater work, than 
the ordinary missionary I Has he not, as an humble instru- 
ment in the hands of the Spirit, been honoured to accom- 
plish, in reference to modern missions, though at an immea- 



397 



surable distance, what the blessed Redeemer himself did by 
His own underived power \ — when, instead of going forth to 
preach in person the unsearchable riches of salvation, He 
raised up and qualified the apostles to go and proclaim the 
glad tidings to all nations ? 

Oh, how different from the present race would be the body 
of converts thus reared, and how different their influence on 
the destinies of India ! Hitherto almost all, (to adopt sub- 
stantially the oral confession of a faithful and experienced 
missionary,) almost all the members of the native churches 
have laboured under essential deficiencies. However much 
we may hope, and trust, and confidently believe, that the 
names of many of them have been registered in the Lamb's 
book of life, yet, except in a very few particular instances, 
they have not exhibited that strength and enduring stability 
of character which could reasonably entitle us to regard 
them as " the seed of the Church'' in the wide and populous 
domain of Indian heathenism. No ! they resemble more 
those feeble, shrivelled blades of grass which occasionally 
shoot up under the genial influence of a mild winter season ; 
and which serve to indicate that the vital powers of mother 
earth are not wholly extinct, rather than afford to the hus- 
bandman the promise of an abundant harvest. 

And if we have been constrained to seek for a fitting type 
and image of the past and present race of native Christians, 
viewed as a body, in such feeble fugitive growths, where 
shall we go in quest of a suitable type and image of the new 
and superior race which we long and pray to see arise ? 
Where, but in that grand product of India itself, — the ban- 
yan, or celebrated fig-tree, — so happily described by our great 
epic poet, as — 

" Spreading her arms 
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade 
High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between." 

. Yes ; this is the exact type, the visible representation of 
the kind of converted labourer that is wanted for India ; — 



398 



one in whose expanded and sanctified intellect, in whose 
enlarged and purified heart, the seed of all quickening 
truth, human and divine, has been implanted. There it 
takes root and germinates. Fraught with vivifying power, 
up it springs into a stately stem of intelligence and godli- 
ness; — outward it shoots its vigorous branches, laden with 
the sap of grace and fructifying knowledge ; and these 
again cast down their fibres of instruction and living influ- 
ence, which fasten in the soil of other heads and other hearts. 
Thence arises many a new stem of fruitful piety, which, by 
a similar process, extends outwards, — again descends and 
springs up ; — and so onwards without end, — till the whole 
land be converted into a beauteous garden, replenished with 
"plants of renown' 1 — plants of righteousness — which, though 
endowed with their own several individual identities, are yet 
so many inseparably united members of the great tree of life, 
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. 

Hitherto, in the magnificence of empire, India has been 
truly said to have found nothing more precious, either to 
possess or be proud of possessing, than — 

" Fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, 
Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, 
Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, 
And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, 
As one of them, indifferently rated, 
May serve, in peril of calamity, 
To ransom great kings from captivity." 

Happy day for India ! — when, through the descent of the 
Spirit's influences on the devoted labours of her own emanci- 
pated sons, the garden of her early youth which has so long 
been parched into utter barrenness, shall be made verdant 
and fruitful by the distilling dews of heavenly instruction ; — 
and the vale of her riper years, which has so long been strewn 
with nought but forms, cold and lifeless as the dry bones in 
the valley of vision, shall be enlivened by the trumpet peals 
of the G-ospel message, and the stirring activities of a resur- 
rection from the dead ; — and the channels of all her know- 
ledge, which have so long been choked into stagnation by 
every thing noxious and venomous, shall be cleansed by 



399 



letting in upon them a full stream from the fount itself of 
living waters, in God's holy oracles. Then will India, even 
in the magnificence of empire, find no costly stone half so 
precious as the new jewel that hath been put into her hands 
— even the jewel of great price which hath ransomed, not only 
great kings, but great kingdoms, from their captivity, — aye, 
and the whole creation itself from the bondage, under which 
for ages it hath travailed and groaned. Then will India, even 
in the magnificence of empire, find no " clothing of wrought 
gold, 1 ' no "raiment of needle- work, " half so royal as the 
new robes wherewith she hath been clad, — robes woven of the 
beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Then will India, even 
in the magnificence of empire, find no delight in the posses- 
sion of her " fiery opals and beauteous rubies, her grass-green 
emeralds and sparkling diamonds," half so great as her 
abounding joy in casting these down, as tributes of homage 
and free-will offerings of gratitude, at the feet of her long 
despised but now adored Immanuel. 

Note — After the preceding chapter was wholly written and sent to the press, 
the author was favoured with the perusal of an able work, by an eminently 
calm and dispassionate observer, as well as zealous and distinguished friend of 
missions — the Rev. Mr Malcolm; who was recently sent to South Eastern Asia, 
on a missionary tour of inspection, by one of the great American Societies. 
In that work, many of the views contained in the chapter now closed, are not 
only substantially corroborated, but some of them expressed in terms fully 
more strong than the author had deemed it advisable to adopt. In the section 
relative to " the disadvantages under which the best and purest missionary 
labour is exerted," Vol. II. p. 265, Mr Malcolm enumerates, amongst others, 
the following particulars. 

1. An imperfect knowledge of the language of the people. 

" Scarcely one missionary in twenty has become able to preach with entire 
fluency, and probably never one had such a knowledge of the language as in- 
spiration gave. Few can acquire such mastery of a foreign tongue, as to ex- 
press their thoughts with the glow and intensity of a native, even when the 
idiom and structure of the language is thoroughly understood. 

" An experienced missionary in Bengal assured me, that on an average, 
not one half of the sermons of missionaries who undertake to preach is un- 
derstood. Dr Carey, in a letter of August, 1809, states that after, by years 
of study, he thought he had fully mastered the Bengali, and had then 
preached it two full years, he discovered that he was not understood ! Yet 
Dr C.'s teachers flattered him that he was understood perfectly. This is a 
very common deception of pandits and munshis. In the opinion of one of 



400 



the most experienced missionaries in the Madras Presidency, not one mission- 
ary in ten, out of those who live the longest, ever gets that language so as 
to be generally understood, except when declaring the simplest truths. This 
is a difficulty not to be removed. Merchants and traders may easily acquire 
the vocabulary of traffic and social life, and so do missionaries. They may 
go further, and be able to read or understand literary and historical subjects. 
But to have the ready command of words, on abstract theological subjects, 
and all the nice shades of meaning requisite to discuss accurately mental and 
moral subjects, can only be the work of many years, of intense study, and 
great practice. 

" 2. There is a still greater difficulty in the poverty of the languages them- 
selves. 

" For terms which are of primary importance in religious discourse, words 
must often be used which are either unmeaning or foreign to the purpose, or 
inaccurate. It is not easy to exhibit this difficulty in its true magnitude to 
such as have not mixed with heathen. 

" For a multitude of our terras there is no word at all. Among these are 
not only theological terms, such as sanctification, gospel, evangelist, church, 
atonement, devil, &c, but the names of implements, animals, customs, cloth- 
ing, and many other things, of which ignorant and remote tribes have never 
heard, and for which entire new terms are obliged to be coined. 

" Let a man imagine how he would be embarrassed in reading a book, or 
hearing a discourse, in which he constantly met with Greek or Arabic terms, 
and words used in a sense differing more or less from that in which he un- 
derstands them, and these often the principal terms in the sentence, and he 
may form some conception of this difficulty. 

" 3. Want of familiarity with the system and sacred books to be encoun- 
tered, and with national prejudices and modes of thinking. 

" For exposing with freedom, and attacking with power, a popular belief, 
these are eminent advantages. Hence, in part, the superior success of na- 
tive preachers. The apostles were native preachers almost wherever they 
went ; and we see how largely they used their intimate knowledge of the 
national religion and habits of thinking, not only in disputations, but in for- 
mal discourses and epistles. Many years must elapse before a missionary can 
attain this power ; and then only by the wearisome perusal of many volumes 
of disgusting legends, as well as contact with natives in many ways, and for 
a long period. 

" 8. The apostles were not every where met by a system of natural phi- 
losophy which directly contradicted all their teachings. 

" Wherever Christianity now goes, a new system of geography and astro- 
nomy must be adopted. It cannot be said that the missionary may pass by 
this topic, and only preach Christ crucified. His hearers will not let him 
pass it by. The country he professes to have left, cannot exist by their sys- 
tem. The Shastra and the Bhagavad must fall, if his system be true. He 
will be attacked upon it. It will be regarded as a part of his religious be- 
lief, and he must clear away their cosmogony, before he can build his faith. 
With the few who can be so far educated as to understand and receive 



401 



the Copernican system, this difficulty is converted into a facility. Such are 
at least rendered unbelievers in their own religion. 

On the subject of education, Mr Malcolm does not appear sufficiently to 
discriminate between the admitted inefficiency of mere elementary schools, and 
the equally demonstrable efficiency of seminaries of a higher order. And he 
looks far too exclusively to immediate conversions as the test and criterion of 
educational usefulness — forgetful of the multitude of beneficial influences of 
an indirect and preparatory character which a rightly conducted system dif- 
fuses throughout a stagnant community. In other respects, many of his re- 
marks and suggestions tally precisely with those which we have ventured to 
express. In page 303, he thus writes :_" The question seems not to have 
received sufficient attention, whether we should multiply schools, and teach 
mere rudiments to a great number, or restrict the number, and carry the 
education to a high point. I am in favour of the latter course. No nation 
has become literary by universal instruction in reading and writing. These 
confer no knowledge ; they are only means for acquiring and diffusing it. In 
a country where the absence of books, periodicals, and political freedom, pre- 
clude advancement in after-life, beyond the rudiments learned at school, these 
acquirements will not be generally retained; or if retained, are of little use." 
On the important subject of translations, our author thus comments : — 
" At some stations, at least, less time might be devoted to translations 
and tracts. 

» It is not desirable that missionaries should in their first years devote 
themselves to translation and authorship, even if there be no Christian books 
in the language. To write and translate, as exercises for themselves, is im- 
portant ; but they should put nothing to press till they have been years at 
their post, and have revised their work many times. It would be well if 
every missionary, qualified, by his early studies, to translate the Scriptures, 
were to take some select portion and occupy himself upon it, at leisure mo- 
ments, for eight or ten years ; or even his lifetime. He might sketch two 
or three tracts, and keep them by him in the same way. 

" The anxiety for an immediate production of books has caused the pub- 
lication of Scriptures and tracts so imperfect, as to be almost if not quite 
useless, and in particular passages, quite erroneous. To prove this, and at 
the same time show the sort of errors to which I allude, I will give a few 
instances which are mentioned to me, taken from distant and different ver- 
sions. John i. 1, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
the Lord God Boodh, and the Word was the Lord God Boodh.' Exod. Hi. 
2, ' The Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire in the knot of a tree.' 
Acts i. 8, 4 Ye shall receive the power of life and death.' Matt. v. 3, 
< Blessed are the destitute of life.' 1 Cor. v. 6, ' A little crocodile croco- 
dile th the whole lump.' 

" When there are none of these mistranslations, there may be such a want 
of idiomatic propriety, such an infusion of new words, or such general ob- 
scurity, as to discourage, if not bewilder, the heathen reader. Such, it ap- 

C C 



402 



pears from Mr Medhurst,* is the case with Morrison's Chinese version, of 
which the convert Lew Tse-chuen, as quoted by him, says, ' I perceive there 
is no unwillingness to accept the books, but, failing to comprehend their 
meaning, they frequently throw the work aside.' To the same effect is his 
quotation from Choo Tih-lang, a Chinese transcriber now in England. ' Hav- 
ing perused the present translation of the Scriptures into Chinese, I find it 
exceedingly verbose, — containing much foreign phraseology, so contrary to 
the usual style of our books, that the Chinese cannot thoroughly understand 
the meaning, and frequently refuse to look into it.' Marshman's version is 
greatly liable to the same objections. 

" The value even of a good version of Scripture, is wholly overrated by 
such as suppose it to be as intelligible to heathen as our Bible is to the un- 
converted. The case is far otherwise. The most intelligent Pagan finds 
not only words, but facts, reasonings, and allusions, which he can no better 
understand than the Ethiopian eunuch did the predictions concerning Christ. 
He has not so much preparations for understanding the Bible, as is required 
by our children in the nursery. Beside, this want of preparation is the lit- 
tleness and debility of a heathen's mind. Things must be explained to 
him, as to an infant. Let the language be never so plain and idiomatic, he 
will rarely understand the subject, unless it be some simple parable or narra- 
tive. Hence the king of Siam, after hearing a Christian book read, threw it 
aside, saying, ' Let the teachers go on giving these books ; no man in my 
kingdom can understand them.' 

" The number of heathen who can read intelligibly, on subjects not connect- 
ed with trade and common things, is very small. This point seems not to have 
excited sufficient attention ; and a few efforts, lately made, lead to startling 
conclusions. * * * In a late discussion of another subject in the Friend 
of India, it is declared by the editor that not more than one million, out of 
the thirty millions of Bengalees, can read. And this estimate is twice as 
high as is made by some others. Mr Trevelyan, admitting that there may be 
a million, asks, ' And what sort of readers are this one million ? How. many 
of them understand what they read ? There are probably not five hundred persons 
in all India not educated by Europeans, who could take up a translation, in 
their own character, of any work on philosophy, morals, or religion, and read 
it extempore with understanding.' 

" Our expectations from the diffusion of Bibles and tracts appear extrava- 
gant, if we reason upon them in the abstract. No school-teacher could hope 
to fulfil his duty by shutting himself up in a study, and sending out among 
his pupils elementary treatises and cogent appeals. The avidity with which 
our books are received, is not to be ascribed to a general and intense desire 
to know the truth. The paper, the printing, the shape, and the colour of a 
book, make it as great a curiosity as a palm-leaf manuscript is to us. A 
heathen missionary might give away any quantity of such manuscripts in the 
streets of our cities, and the rush for them would continue till they ceased to 
be curiosities." 



* China 3 its State and Prospects, p. 443. 



403 



Once more, in page 333, Mr Malcolm thus dilates on the qualifications of 
native assistants : — 

" The importance of this class of auxiliaries can scarcely be too highly esti- 
mated. Without risk of health, and with little expense or inconvenience, 
they can carry the tidings of salvation where a missionary cannot go, or may 
not be sent, for an age. They can travel, eat, sit, and lodge as the natives 
do. Between those and themselves, there is not that awful distance which 
can scarcely be overcome by a missionary. Their knowledge of the lan- 
guage is complete, which can seldom be said of a foreigner. They know, 
from experience, the exact temptations, doubts, difficulties, and prejudices of 
their hearers. They can talk with an inquirer, often and long, without 
drawing opposition upon him, before he has become enlightened and firm 
enough to endure it. To be seen conversing a few times with a missionary, 
or to go repeatedly to his house, or chapel, excites almost as great opposi- 
tion, as a profession of Christianity. Thus a man's mind must be made up to 
encounter exceeding difficulties, before he has become sufficiently acquainted 
with the missionary's arguments to know whether he will endure sufferings 
for the new religion or not ; that is to say, he must submit to be persecuted, 
before he knows whether the system is worth being persecuted for. 

" Various reasons of this sort, some adapted to the condition of one country, 
and some to that of another, show the duty of fostering this branch of our 
force. Unordained natives have indeed been employed, and in some places 
to a great extent. And to their labours are traceable very numerous conver- 
sions. But it seems necessary to bestow upon them a much greater measure 
of mental cultivation and religious knowledge. Had half the pains been thus 
bestowed, which have been expended on common schools, how great would 
have been the gain ! 

" Without some additional mental cultivation, doctrinal knowledge, and 
practical graces, native assistants are not able to avail themselves of their 
peculiar advantages ; some of which have just been named. It is well known 
that scarcely one of them is able to act alone : and that, though so useful, 
when sustained and guided by a good missionary, they have run into mani- 
fold evils when left to themselves. Why is this ? They possess piety, zeal, 
and talents. It must be owing to the superior intelligence and acquired ad- 
vantages of the missionary. Let us, then, lead them into that knowledge of 
the word of God, and that measure of devotion, which at present they have 
no means of obtaining. 

" Slender would be the qualifications of a minister with us, whose oppor- 
tunities had been no greater than those of native preachers. Abstract from 
him all that his father and mother taught him, all he learned at infant or Sun- 
day school, from the moral maxims of his horn-books, his copy-slips, his 
general reading, and the restraints of Christian society ; put in the place of 
this, every degrading, polluting, and erroneous thing, learned by a heathen 
child, at home, at school, and abroad ; take away the intellectual benefits of 
an academic or collegiate course ; abolish all his knowledge of the evidences 
of Christianity, history, chronology, geography, prophecy, miracles, and the 
state of the world ; all he ever gained by intercourse with eminent saints, or 



404 



a perusal of their biographies ; all the helps he has had from commentators, 
critics, sermons, anniversaries, associations, religious periodicals, and inter- 
course with enlightened fellow-ministers ; in fine, leave him nothing but- 
some portions of God's Word, and a few evangelical tracts ; and add to him 
a plenitude of errors and malpractices acquired in a life of Gentile abomina- 
tions, — and you will have the present qualifications of a native assistant. 

" Some regular institution seems wanting, in every mission, for the express 
purpose of instructing those who give evidences of a call to this work. Ad- 
vantages, similar in kind, if not in extent, to those enjoyed by young minis- 
ters at home, should be placed within their reach. A supply of assistants, 
thus educated, would leave leisure to the missionary for necessary translations 
and revisions ; for exercising a general pastoral care over a large district ; for 
exploring new fields ; for corresponding with the societies at home ; and for 
other duties, which can only be done at a great sacrifice of pastoral pursuits. 

" By no other course does it now appear that we can send the Gospel into 
all the earth. We cannot hope to send forth from ourselves the hundredth 
part of an adequate supply of ministers for six hundred millions of Pagans, at 
an annual expense of from L100 to L.200 for each family. Nor could we 
consent to lay the foundations of Christianity, over so large a portion of the 
earth, by native preachers so ignorant of the system as those we now have." 



CHAPTER V. 



MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 
CONSIDERED. 

The objection of the careless scoffer, who summarily denounces 
the whole as novel and visionary, the growth of modern fanaticism 
— The objection of the worldly politician who, with a special refer- 
ence to India, dreads the propagation of Christianity as dangerous 
to the stability of the Anglo- Indian empire — The objection of unre- 
flecting economists, who allege that, as so many return with im- 
mense fortunes from India, we should restrict our pecuniary de- 
mands to the people of that wealthy region — The objection of the 
latitudinarian liberalist, who pretends that it is an insult to obtrude 
our religion on the upholders of another faith ; that to teach our 
religion to their children is an invasion of the natural rights of 
parents ; and that it is cruel to disturb the peace of families by at- 
tempts to secure their conversion — The objection of the luxuriously 
wealthy, who evade every petition by replying that they have little 
or nothing to spare — The objection of the humble poor, who are 
fearful lest their mite should be too insignificant to prove of any 
avail — The objection of the speculative theorist, who waives all active 
support on the ground of hypothetical reasonings and anticipations 
— The objection of the merely nominal, or sincere but weak-minded 
professor, that there is enough of heathenism at home, without troub- 
ling ourselves with foreign lands — Concluding appeal. 

Against the missionary enterprise, hosts of objections have 
at different times been raised, — varying, as usual, with the 
character of the individual objectors and the fluctuating tide 
of public opinion. Of these, many have now become obso- 
lete, — from the erosion of time, the progress of intelligence, 
and the contradiction given to them by events. A few con- 



406 



tinue still to stand their ground in spite of unanswerable 
argument and demonstrable evidence. Nor is this strange. 
Having their root far more in the cloisters of a corrupt heart 
than in the citadel of an ignorant head, they will endure so 
long as old nature is not universally renovated. 

A scheme like that of Christian Missions, could not be 
expected to escape the ridicule and the scorn of careless 
scoffers. Alike ignorant and unconcerned about its object 
and design, these gallant personages, — disdaining the vulgar 
weapons of inquiry, reason, and argument, — usually satisfy 
themselves with summarily denouncing the whole as novel 
and visionary — the growth of modern fanaticism. Such a 
charge is so ludicrously absurd, that it may be deemed worse 
than superfluous formally to notice it. But those who think 
so, seem wholly to forget what has so often been well urged, 
namely, that even calumny charged home with confident 
boldness, is sure to leave some scar behind, — that from the 
very nature and constitution of our minds, we are ever apt 
to receive "ill impressions from ill suggestions," — that though 
the suggestions be not fully received, because of our previous 
contrary belief, yet they tend to create suspicions, — and 
that, if our practice should ever cease to be conformed to 
our antecedent opinions and belief, the belief of others will 
be readily seized on to confront and neutralize our own, and 
thus interpose a shield between ourselves and the secret 
lashes of our consciences. On this account it is well to meet 
the present cavalier objection, however absurd, — seeing that 
it is the characteristic weapon of so large a class of the com- 
munity. And we propose to meet it, simply by asking with 
calmness and gravity, What is the object and design of the 
missionary enterprise f — that we may be able rationally to in- 
fer whether it be worthy of being denounced as fanatical and 
visionary I To this question, two distinct replies may be fur- 
nished, — one founded on historic fact, and another on high 
principle. 

Those who urge the present objection we would first 
charge on historic grounds. Recall then, would we address 
them, recall to your remembrance what all of you must 



407 



have read of the days that have long gone by. Recall to 
remembrance the time when our own forefathers in this 
now highly favoured land, wandered about as painted sa- 
vages in the woods — sunk in ignorance and brutal barbar- 
ism. Recall to remembrance how they strove to root out 
every lingering indication of reason, by falling prostrate 
before blocks of wood and stone. Recall to remembrance 
the rude temples and dark recesses for the performance of 
their religious rites, — where riotous mirth and stupid amaze- 
ment overwhelmed the deluded votaries, and the frown of 
revengeful deities haunted their imaginations like the very 
horrors of enchantment. Recall to remembrance the bur- 
densome ablution, the excruciating penance, the lawless re- 
velry, the wanton indulgence, the butchery of human victims, 
—all of which were designed to appease, — all of which were 
believed to fill with joy and complacency the capricious, the 
impure, the bloody demons of Druidism. When all this, and 
much more, has been revived on the tablets of memory, look 
around on the spectacle which now every where presents it- 
self to your view. And having well marked the amazing 
contrast, seriously ask yourselves, Why are we not this day, 
like our naked forefathers, dancing wildly round some Druid- 
ical stone in the dark solitude of the forest ; or, cannibal- 
like, quaffing the bloody draught from human skulls, in the 
halls of Odin 2 Why, instead of this, are we now privileged 
to assemble in orderly and solemn attitude, in temples dedi- 
cated to Jehovah Lord of Hosts ! Why have we, who do thus 
assemble, had our station allotted to us in the foremost ranks 
of civilized man \ Why are we the inheritors of domestic 
peace, and social refinement, and intellectual culture, scarce- 
ly vouchsafed in like measure to any other land % Why are 
we the possessors of privileges, civil and religious, which in 
stability of foundation and reciprocal harmony of parts, may 
well be said to be without a parallel in all the world besides ? 
Why, in short, a change so vast and so blessed from the 
condition of our savage and idolatrous ancestors ? 

Let authentic history supply the answer. In days of yore, 
there were men sent from abroad on an embassy of love, to 



408 



visit these shores. These men, — call them missionaries, or 
preachers, or apostles, or by any other name more grateful 
to fastidious ears, as the name cannot alter the nature of the 
recorded fact, — these men came with no ensign but that of 
the cross, — no ammunition but the Bible— the sword of the 
Spirit, — no commissariat but the Gospel graces shining in 
their walk and conversation. They came, they saw, they 
conquered. Through the blessing of God on their bloodless 
warfare, the savage islanders were subdued under the power 
of Christian truth. Their idols were destroyed ; their sa- 
cred groves cut down or deserted ; their sanguinary sacri- 
fices abolished. By becoming Christians, they became civi- 
lized ; — and thus were laid the foundations of that noble fa- 
bric, civil and religious, under whose shadow we have gra- 
dually risen to the rank of one of the greatest, the wisest, 
and the happiest of nations, — and under whose shadow we 
might rise higher still, if we did not madly labour to disin- 
herit ourselves, and sacrilegiously struggle to disentail our 
children ! 

Do you then ask, What is the object of the missionary 
enterprise ? Look at what Britain was two thousand years 
ago ; look at what Britain is now ; — and then ask, To what 
are we indebted for the mighty change ? Solely to the mission- 
ary enterprise of early times. In the transformation of Bri- 
tain from an island of savage idolaters to an island which is 
the home of refinement, the abode of arts and science, the asy- 
lum of liberty, the palladium of that religion which is the fruit- 
ful parent of all other blessings, — you must behold a visible 
illustration of the object of the missionary enterprise, which 
surely is the very contrary of every thing fanatical ; as well as 
discover an irrefragable proof of the practicability of the ob- 
ject, which should demolish the absurd figment of its being 
visionary. 

What, then, is the real object of our missionary enterprise ? 
It is to achieve for India and other benighted lands, what 
has been done, and it may be, under happier auspices, more 
than has been done, for Britain. Professing to love our 
neighbours as ourselves, and to do to others as we would 



409 



have them in similar circumstances, to do unto us, we desire, 
after the example of those devoted men who first visited the 
barbarous British shores, to go forth to those lands where 
ignorance and misery, rudeness and cruelty, ever tread on 
the heels of a dominant heathenism. We desire to go, 
armed as they were, with that Bible whose heavenly truths, 
as experience amply testifies, can penetrate alike the kraals 
of the savage, the cottages of the poor, the mansions of the 
wealthy, and the palaces of kings ; — and in them all lay an 
arrest on the swelling tide of human depravity and human 
woe, — open up the spring-head of all purity and bliss in time, 
— and finally guide to glory, honour, and immortality. To 
pronounce such an object fanatical, is surely to come un- 
der the woe of them that " call evil good, and good evil ; 
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put 
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." To pronounce it 
visionary, is flatly to contradict the united testimonies of past 
history and personal experience. 

We would next address the objectors on the ground of 
high principle. The question being again put, What is the 
object of the missionary enterprise \ The other answer of 
resistless force is, To hasten and realize the grand design 
which God contemplated from all eternity, in reference to the 
fallen race of man. 

Why was the world at first created and stored through- 
out with such varied products of earth, air, and ocean ? It 
was for the manifestation of Jehovah's attributes of power, 
wisdom and goodness : — It was to provide a blissful habita- 
tion for man in his primeval estate of holiness and innocence. 
Why then was it preserved when man, through disobedience, 
fell I— Not surely that it might become a rich storehouse of 
bounties to foster the pride of the wealthy, or gratify the law- 
less appetite of the luxurious ; not that it might become a fit 
theatre for the intrigues of the ambitious, or the investiga- 
tions of the proud ungodly philosopher ? No. It was preserv- 
ed for infinitely higher, and holier, and nobler purposes. It 
was preserved for a new and peculiar display and vindica- 
tion of Jehovah's attributes in carrying on and consummat- 



410 



ing the mysterious work of man's redemption. It was pre- 
served for the sake of furnishing a scene of probation to the 
elect people of God, who were to appear through the vari- 
ous ages of its duration. It was preserved that it might 
thus prove a nursery for the paradise above, — that in it those 
seeds might be sown which were destined to spring up and 
blossom in the climes of immortality. And when the num- 
ber of the redeemed is completed, and the last saint shall 
have terminated his allotted course, — then, also, shall God's 
purposes, in regard to the world which we inhabit, be com- 
pleted, — and then shall " the heavens pass away with a great 
noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and a new 
heaven and a new earth arise wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness. 1 "' 

Now this grand design of redeeming a world of lost sin- 
ners, through the intervention of a Divine Mediator, was 
distinctly intimated, though in language highly figurative, 
to our first parents in the garden of Eden, ere they were 
banished as outcasts from its consecrated domains. It was 
cherished with parental fondness by the ancient patriarchs 
who were gladdened in spirit at the cheering prospect of the 
future glories of Messiah's reign. It was nurtured into ma- 
turity by a succession of holy prophets, whose souls, inspired 
by the Spirit of all grace, gave forth those enraptured utter- 
ances which, strung on the harp of Judah, were destined to 
inflame the hearts of myriads in every age. After a vast ex- 
penditure of earnest desire and magnificent preparation, it 
at last burst upon the world amid floods of celestial light, 
when the heavenly host, in such strains as angels sing, 
pealed forth the joyous anthem of " Glory to God in the 
highest," for having, after so long and protracted a dawn, 
made the Sun of Righteousness to rise over the darkness of 
a miserable and perishing world. 

The great design was now more distinctly than ever un- 
folded in the teaching of Him who, though Jehovah's fel- 
low, yet humbled himself and for a season tabernacled in 
human form. In His meritorious obedience and sacrificial 
sufferings upon the . cross, was the divine design gloriously 



411 



consummated. Then it was that He cried with a loud 
voice, " It is finished," and bowed his head and gave up 
the ghost ! — "It is finished," — The full completion of eter- 
nal counsels ; — the full developement of the fairest scheme 
of divine wisdom — the fairest product of infinite love. " It 
is finished," — Mercy and truth have met together; righte- 
ousness and peace have embraced each other. " It is finish- 
ed," — The debt is paid ; sin expiated ; the law magnified ; 
justice satisfied ; mercy glorified ; and everlasting peace and 
reconciliation established between offended majesty and of- 
fending man. 

Time was when the visible Church of the living God was 
wrapped up within the narrow confines of Judea ; and its 
professing members consisted exclusively of the families and 
tribes of Israel. In contradistinction, however, to such nar- 
row boundaries and such scanty membership, holy seers 
were privileged to glance along the roll of ages ; and there to 
contemplate a bright and glorious era, in which the bounds 
of the Church of God should be none other than " the ends 
of the earth," and its professing members should consist of 
" all the kindreds or families of the nations." 

Time, therefore, was, when " the Gentiles" were " aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the co- 
venants of promise." In contradistinction, however, to such 
exclusive dealings, holy seers were commissioned to reveal the 
sublime address of the Ancient of Days, to His " only be- 
gotten Son," when He anointed Him king over His holy hill 
of Zion, saying, " Ask of me and I shall give thee the 
heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for thy possession." When the Son appeared 
on earth, He significantly indicated to His disciples that 
the time for realizing the object of the holy oracle was near 
at hand. " Other sheep," said He, " I have which are not 
of this fold," i. e., not of the Jewish fold ; " them also I 
must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be 
one fold and one shepherd." And as the hour of " the 
power of darkness" approached, we find Him in His last in- 
tercessory prayer, after commending those around Him to 



412 



the keeping of the Father, giving utterance to these empha- 
tic words ; " neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
who shall believe on me through their word ; that they all 
may be one ; that the world may believe that thou hast sent 
me. 11 In other words, He then did, when on the verge of 
" the agony and bloody sweat," in direct and significant al- 
lusion to the ancient prophecy, solemnly ask the Father 
that all the world, Gentiles as well as J ews, might be given 
to Him as His inheritance. 

Would the Father refuse to hear the petition and accom- 
plish His own promise ? Impossible. At the very moment 
when the everlasting covenant was ratified by the Redeemer's 
blood, the veil of the temple was rent in twain. — Emphatic 
emblem to denote that the middle wall of partition was now 
broken down between Jew and Gentile ! At that moment the 
prayer was answered, — the prophecy fulfilled. Henceforward 
the Gentiles were embraced within the ample folds of the ra- 
tified covenant, and became entitled to all its divine rights 
and godlike privileges. 

Though, however, from that hour the Gentile nations be- 
came the " inheritance " of the Son by right of covenant, they 
did not at once become His by actual possession. No. But 
the covenant by which they were to become His, being now 
confirmed and sealed with His own blood, He was entitled, 
as the Mighty One, the everlasting King, the constituted 
head of mediatorial government, to " gird His sword upon 
His thigh, with glory and with majesty ; and in His majesty 
ride forth prosperously " in the Gospel chariot, " conquering 
and to conquer." 

Accordingly, when He arose victorious after bursting 
asunder the fetters of death and the grave, He, as the great 
Captain of salvation, summoned into His presence the chosen 
leaders of His little army of spiritual warriors. And when 
about to reascend up on high, leading " captivity captive," 
He delivered unto them His parting commission, saying, "Go 
ye into all the world, teaching all nations, and preaching the 
Gospel to every creature." In other words, " The set time, 
foreknown of God from all eternity,— that day of grace which 



413 



constituted the joy of patriarchs, the song of prophets, and 
the chorus of angels — that bright and glorious era when glad- 
some light and liberty should be restored to all — has now 
arrived. In me all the types and shadows of the law have 
been realized ; in me all the promises have been amply veri- 
fied ; and by my blood has the everlasting covenant been rati- 
fied, — ' well ordered in all things and sure.' In that covenant 
there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. All na- 
tions are embraced in it as members of one great and uni- 
versal family. Henceforward the whole world is mine by 
right of purchase. Still, though it is now my own, it doth 
not know, or will not acknowledge me. Every where it is 
up in arms, in unnatural rebellion against me, its Anointed 
King and Sovereign Proprietor. Go ye, then, my beloved 
disciples and faithful followers, go into all the world. Go, and 
in my name claim the rightful occupation of it. Go, and in my 
name wield the sword of the Spirit ; quell the rebels ; and 
reduce them to a state of natural and dutiful allegiance. Go, 
and in my name take possession of the conquered nations. 
Go, and thus realize all the ancient prophecies which an- 
nounced that the time must come when the heathen shall 
be given to me as my inheritance, and the uttermost parts 
of the earth as an actual possession. Go and hasten on the 
blissful period, when the kings of Tarshish and the isles shall 
bring presents ; and the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts ; 
— yea, when all kings shall bow down before me, and all na- 
tions serve me, — when men shall be blessed in me, and all 
nations shall call me blessed. Go, and thus consummate 
the triumphs of that design which was contemplated from 
all eternity in the counsels of the Godhead, — the grand de- 
sign of redeeming, through the blood of the everlasting cove- 
nant, a whole world of lost sinners from sin and corruption, 
death and hehV , 

In obedience to this command, and in execution of the 
trust committed to them, the primitive disciples went forth 
in a spirit of such determined heroism, that before the close 
of the apostolic age, it could be said that " their sound went 
into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the 



414 



world." But alas, the Christian Church soon relapsed into 
a state of sloth and slumber and criminal neglect in reference 
to the evangelistic ordinance of its great Head and Redeemer. 
Is proof demanded for the truth of this assertion ? The pre- 
sent condition of the world is a confronting proof, as condem- 
natory as it is well-nigh universal. Ages have elapsed since 
the price of the " purchased possession" was fully paid, and 
its title-deed sealed with ImmanueFs blood. And yet, out 
of eight hundred millions, there are at present about six hun- 
dred who have never externally bent the knee, nor even no- 
minally professed the name of Jesus, — that only name given 
under heaven whereby man can be saved ! Three-fourths of 
the race of man literally without any knowledge of the true 
God and the way of salvation ! Three-fourths of the world 
in continued rebellion against their Sovereign Lord and his 
Anointed ! Three-fourths of the habitable parts of the earth, 
instead of being possessed as a vineyard of the Lord, lying 
waste as an undisturbed domain of the prince of darkness ! 
Think of the holy oracle addressed to the veteran warrior, 
at whose bidding " the sun stood still in Gibeon, and the 
moon in the valley of Ajalon," while he led on the armies of 
Israel from victory to victory in achieving the conquest of the 
promised land, — " Thou art old and well stricken in years, 
and yet there remaineth very much land to be possessed." With 
what thrilling emphasis might the same oracle be now ad- 
dressed to the Christian Church — that Church which ought 
all along to have been a fertile nurse of heroes triumphantly 
leading on the march of spiritual conquest to the uttermost 
ends of the earth ! With what crushing force of conviction 
and unendurable agony of remorse, ought she, after ages of 
childish dotage and bald senility, to listen to the heavenly 
monition, " Thou art old and well stricken in years, and yet 
there remaineth very much land to be possessed ! " 

Blessed be God, the Church, though long sunk into dotage 
and senility, has not become utterly dead. The cry has 
once more been raised in the midst of her, — loud as the call 
of dying multitudes which no man can number,— that " the 
field" is not Scotland or England or Christendom, but " the 



415 



world. 11 A voice from heaven, a voice from earth, and a 
voice from hell, is daily sounding in her ears, to speed and make 
haste, and cast in her sickle ere " the field" itself — the whole 
habitable globe, — shall pass away and no place be found for 
it. And has the Church been wholly deaf to the stirring 
call ? No : The Church of Christ at large has now been 
partially awakened. There is a shaking among the dry bones 
of formalism. There is a rustling among the withered leaves 
of profession. There is the sighing of a long imprisoned 
spirit, struggling towards deliverance. There is a panting 
after expansion and enlargement without respect to nation 
or to climate. There is a longing for union and concentra- 
tion of awakened energy in the universal diffusion of Divine 
truth. Now, what is all this, but the commencement of a re- 
turn to the discharge of a bounden though long- neglected 
duty ? — a return to the enjoyment of an inestimable though 
long-despised privilege ? What is all this, on the part of the 
Christian Church, but an incipient endeavour towards a re- 
newing of that covenant, by means of which alone she her- 
self has been inaugurated into the possession of the means 
of grace now, and the hopes of glory hereafter \ — that ever- 
lasting covenant under whose immutable provisions she is so- 
lemnly plighted to go forth in direct obedience to the Divine 
command, and to do what in her lies towards the further- 
ance of that eternal design, the consummation of whose tri- 
umphs shall enable the Redeemer to see of the travail of His 
soul in every land, and be satisfied ? In a word, what is all 
this grand, combined, and simultaneous movement, in dis- 
charge of a divinely imperative obligation, on the part of the 
Christian Church, but another name for the missionary enter- 
prise ? 

If such, then, be the Divine origin and design of the mis- 
sionary enterprise, who can any longer lay any thing to its 
charge ? As to its origin, Who can henceforward vilify it as 
a novel scheme, — the spontaneous product or self-combustion 
of modern zealotism? What ! — Novel? Modern \ Avaunt thou 
falsifier of a glorious truth, whosoever thou art ! Instead of be- 
ing, like your own senseless rationalism, the growth of yester- 



416 



day, it is coeval with the Christian era, — contemporaneous 
with creation— yea, antedating all time, it is registered in the 
statute-book of heaven, " old as eternity ! " As to object and 
design, Who can henceforward brand it as visionary and fana- 
tical? What! — Visionary andfanatical? A vaunt thou slanderer 
of thy God and Saviour, whosoever thou art ! If there be fana- 
ticism here, you must cease to lay it to the account of those who 
merely labour as servants, and in obedience to a Divine com- 
mand, to promote it. You must go and — oh, horrid ! — you 
must at once charge the Divine Author of the design — with 
visionariness and fanaticism ! Upon your head and not on ours 
must rest the blasphemy of the charge ! Look to heaven 
God the Father is its Author ; God the Son was sent forth, 
and he came into the world as the chief— the very Prince of 
missionaries—- to reveal it ; God the Holy Ghost is its real 
though invisible Conductor along successive generations. 
Look to earth ; — the goodly fellowship of the prophets were 
its divinely-chosen chroniclers ; the glorious company of 
apostles, its heroic executors ; and the noble army of mar- 
tyrs, its honoured witnesses ! And think you that a design 
so originated, so conducted, and so executed,— a design en- 
compassed with such divine grandeur and glory, — can be 
thwarted in its progress towards ultimate universal accom- 
plishment by the whispers of slander, the voice of tumult, or 
the outbreakings of malice ? Impossible. Already hath it 
withstood the encounter of a thousand thousand embattled 
foes. And onwards will it maintain the contest, till sin, and 
death, and hell, be swallowed up in victory ! 

The next class of objections which we propose to notice, 
embraces those of the worldly politician. These refer almost 
exclusively to India. About a quarter of a century ago, 
they were made to sweep through the land with the noise 
and vehemence of a tempest. Since then, there has been a 
general lull. But their energy has not been exhausted. In 
certain high places they still lurk ; and among certain sec- 
tions of the community they still circulate with a force which 



417 



has not been materially diminished. Their fallacy, there- 
fore, it is incumbent upon us to expose afresh, when pleading 
for the evangelization of India. All of them worthy of any 
notice, under whatever variety of form they may at different 
times have been presented, will be found on analysis, to re- 
solve themselves into one. That one in substance is, " That 
the introduction of Christianity into our eastern possessions , 
must endanger the stability of the British dominion? 

This objection has been supported by reasonings drawn 
from different sources. Of these there are two of a charac- 
ter generically distinct — urged not contemporaneously, but 
at successive epochs. 

Between thirty and forty years ago, when English Protes- 
tant missions began to be planted in the East, the loud alarm 
was raised of " our empire in danger." 1 At that time, the 
ground of apprehension did not originate in any prospective 
contemplation of the effects of the ultimate conversion of the 
natives. No. All the leading anti-missionary champions 
openly and strongly avowed their conviction of the utter im- 
practicability of such conversion at all. With them the cause 
of alarm w r as immediate. Not only in their estimation would 
the natives not embrace Christianity, but any endeavour to 
initiate them into its principles, would rouse them into fury. 
Such was the invincible attachment of the people to their own 
religion, that whenever it was touched, even by argument or 
persuasion, "they grasped their daggers." Any attempt, there- 
fore, to interfere in any way with their religion, laws, or cus- 
toms, was denounced as inevitably tending to the speedy and 
utter destruction of the British power. The establishment 
even of common seminaries of education, which the children 
might attend or not as the parents felt disposed, was severely 
reprobated as fraught with danger. " The mind of man, 1 ' 
it was alleged, " never conceived a wilder or a more danger- 
ous plan than that of instituting free schools throughout 
Hindustan. The institution itself would arm all India 
against us." As to the plan of translating and gratuitously 
circulating copies of the Bible among the natives, it was 
most gravel v asseverated, that " if the ingenuitv of Buona- 

D d 



418 



parte had been exercised in devising a plan, which, with more 
certainty than any other, would destroy the British empire 
in India, he would have recommended that very plan." In 
a word, so scrupulous, so jealous, and so combustible were 
the natives, on the subject of their own laws, customs, and 
observances, that were it only to be announced that mission- 
aries were sent simply " for their instruction, in the hopes 
of their embracing the only true religion ; but if they chose 
to continue obstinate in error, they would be interfered with 
no farther," — such an announcement would instantly lead 
to a general insurrection as its inevitable consequence. 

How was so sudden and fell a catastrophe to be averted ? 
By a palpable demonstration on the part of the British Go- 
vernment, that far from encouraging, it at least had not 
even the faintest desire or wish for the conversion of the na- 
tives. And how could such emphatic demonstration be 
made ? Not by any assurance in words, however strong or 
solemn ; but by some significant overt act. And what act 
would alone meet the alarming exigencies of the case ? No- 
thing less than " the immediate recall of every English mis- 
sionary, and a prohibition of all persons dependent on the 
Company from giving assistance to the translation or circu- 
lation of our holy Scriptures." Such, in 1807, were pro- 
nounced to be " the most, and indeed the only efficacious 
measures ;" — on which the celebrated Andrew Fuller, with 
his usual point and caustic terseness, remarked, " That they 
would be efficacious, there can be no doubt ; and such would 
be the application of the guillotine for the cure of the head- 
ache ; but whether it be just or wise is another question." 
Such, in 1807, were publicly declared to be the only mea- 
sures which could allay universal suspicion and alarm, and 
save the British power in India from immediate and utter 
destruction. And the declaration of the indispensable neces- 
sity of resorting to these more than despotic measures, was 
echoed and re-echoed from the Ganges to the Thames. 

Thirty years have now elapsed since the issuing of this 
dolorous manifesto. And instead of the missionaries having 
been recalled, their number has been increased tenfold. In- 



419 

stead of the work of translating the Scriptures in the verna- 
cular dialects of India having been suspended, the progress 
of that good work has been accelerated more than tenfold ; 
and that too, chiefly, by the hired assistance of learned 
Brahmans ! Instead of the circulation of the Bible having 
been violently arrested, it is not too much to say, that it 
has been augmented a hundredfold. Instead of free schools 
having been annihilated, they have been multiplied probably 
more than a hundredfold ! And yet, far from general re- 
sentment having been provoked ; far from general commo- 
tion and insurrectionary violence having been exerted, — be- 
yond the individual hatred and contempt which the Gospel 
never fails to elicit from the carnal mind ; and occasional per- 
sonal abuse from "lewd fellows of the baser sort,"— there have 
not been any overt acts of opposition manifested on the part 
of the people of India. There has not been the slightest out- 
break or tumult calculated to disturb the public peace of any 
district or village in the land ; far less calculated to endanger 
the security and permanence of the British empire. 

Indeed, so preposterously unfounded were all the fears of 
the political alarmists of former times, that it is scarcely 
possible to compare their lugubrious oracular deliverances 
with the totally opposite character of subsequent events, 
without calling forth shouts of ridicule. Time has amply 
proved what the sagacity of Fuller and others enabled them 
to surmise, that the alarms — which were said to prevail so ex- 
tensively among the natives of India, and the recital of which 
was so industriously propagated in Britain, — were in reality 
all of them fabrications of the European terrorists themselves; 
— the fabrications of men who themselves were hostile to 
vital Christianity and its interests ;— the fabrications of men 
who themselves had unhappily apostatised in spirit, though 
not in name, from the religion of their fathers ; and who 
could not brook the burning disgrace of being reminded at 
every step, of their degeneracy and guilt, by the confronting 
and confounding example of proselytes from heathenism. 

The event having thus more than falsified the alarms of 



420 



those who gravely averred, and again and again reiterated 
the averment, that the very attempt to instruct the natives, 
with a view to their conversion, would ignite their jealousies 
into a flame of a universal rebellion, — the political objection 
without being removed, assumed another and more appro- 
priate form. The cry of immediate danger from any attempt 
to Christianize the natives, had of necessity been abandoned. 
But that spirit of " old Adam," which alone originated the 
false alarm, had not been changed. Rendered more wary, 
however, by the experience of the past, its authors now over- 
step the present ; and are seen rising in an ebullition of rage, 
when they contemplate the distant future. " It has been la- 
mented as a great political evil," say our modern political 
alarmists, " that there should be a difference of religion be- 
tween us and our fellow-subjects in the East. But to that dif- 
ference of religion more than to any other circumstance, do 
we owe the permanence of our oriental dominion. Is it sup- 
posed possible, that thirty thousand British subjects could re- 
tain an empire containing a hundred and thirty millions of 
people, if the Christian religion was universal in India I If, 
therefore, India is worth preserving, the introduction of Chris- 
tianity ought to be discountenanced, and its farther progress 
suppressed." Such, in substance, and almost in so many 
words, is the reasoning by which many, even in our day, 
would persuade the British Government to lay a violent ar- 
rest on the missionary enterprise. 

Now, in reference to all such reasoning, we might, in the first 
place, as believers in the divine origin of Christianity, at once 
take the highest ground, and respond in the words of one of 
its most illustrious advocates : — " If Christianity be true, it is 
of such importance that no political considerations are suffi- 
cient to weigh against it ; nor ought they for a moment to 
be placed in competition with it. If Christianity be true, it 
is of God ; and if it be of God, to oppose its progress on the 
grounds of political expediency, is the same thing as to tell 
our Maker that we will not have Him to reign over us, unless 
His government be subservient to our temporal interests." 
To this we might further add, — If Christianity be not only 



421 



true, but the only true religion which is one day to be univer- 
sal ; and which we, as professing disciples, are enjoined by 
Divine authority to propagate far and wide, — are we at 
liberty, from political or any other considerations, to with- 
draw from the work in any particular land ? Has it ever 
been submitted to our decision, — to our views of expediency or 
worldly policy, — whether we should agree to yield obedience 
to an ordinance of heaven or not? If not; are we not 
bound thus calmly but firmly to address our opponents, 
though they may enrol in their number the powers, and do- 
minions, and princedoms of the land ? — "You declare that we 
are at liberty to proceed to the desert wastes of Africa, the 
wildernesses of America, and the numberless Archipelagos 
strewn over the bosom of the broad Pacific, — but that to 
India we have no right to go, and must not, as there the in- 
troduction of Christianity can " do nothing but mischief/' 
How sadly deficient, according to this view, must its Divine 
Author have been, either in foresight or benevolence ! Our 
commission, as derived from Him, is as precise as it is peremp- 
tory, " Go ye into all the world — the world of all nations, 11 
without limitation or reserve. If your view of the matter were 
correct, our commission ought to have run thus, " Go ye into 
all the world excepting always the nation of Hindustan, and 
the hundred and thirty millions of perishing heathens there." 
But, as there is no evidence that in the original commission 
there ever appeared any such important restricting clause, — 
to the exclusion of India or any other land, — we still feel 
bound, on the principle of obeying God rather than man, to 
persevere in our attempts to proclaim the Gospel to the mil- 
lions of the East,— leaving the future consequences to Him 
who, in issuing His commands, knoweth the end from the be- 
ginning, and " doeth according to His will in the armies of 
heaven, and among the inhabitants of this earth." 

Descending, however, from a position which may seem too 
transcendental to those who are disposed seriously to urge the 
political objection, — we may proceed to occupy lower, and to 
them, more intelligible ground. 



422 



Why, then, we may be permitted to ask, why do they 
dread the probable separation of India from Britain \ They 
nauseate the introduction of Christian knowledge, as sup- 
posed to hasten on that abhorred consummation ? Is it for 
fear of impairing the political bliss which, under the protec- 
tion of British skill and valour, India is said at present to 
enjoy ? If so, then are they bound to show how the spread 
of the pure, expansive, and ennobling truths of Christianity 
can, under any conceivable circumstances, prove injurious to 
the political peace and welfare of any country under heaven. 
They will ransack past history in vain for any such proof. 
If there be one truth which, more than another, all past his- 
tory confirms, it is this, — that all political compacts, not based 
on Christian principle and not leavened with Christian truth, 
have in them the seeds of disorder, confusion, and inevitable 
decay. 

Or, rather, do they dread the anticipated separation, 
not on account of the people of India, but solely on their 
own account ? Utterly, or almost utterly, regardless of 
the real happiness, political or social, temporal or eter- 
nal, of the millions subjected to our sway, do they dread 
the loss of India, solely or chiefly on the ground of its 
interfering with their own worldly interests, their own self- 
ish aggrandisement? If so, what do all their fine spun 
reasonings, when disentangled from the web of empty pre- 
tences and professions, amount to but this ? — " Since we have 
conquered India by our skill in the cabinet, and our valour 
in the field, we may now surely regard it as a legitimate 
quarry for the hunting of our prey. The myriads of its peo- 
ple are, it must be confessed, sunk in deplorable ignorance and 
revolting superstition. Many even of their religious usages 
are sanguinary to a degree that reflects dishonour on humanity 
itself. But what of all this ? The people themselves seem 
wonderfully delighted with a system which certainly pleads 
in its favour a venerable antiquity. To it they seem enthusi- 
astically and invincibly attached ; and as under it the spirit 
of freedom is utterly crushed and supplanted by that of ab- 
ject passive obedience, in the continuance of such a state of 



423 



things must consist our safety. Come, then, let us charter 
their ignorance ; let us stereotype their errors ; let us eter- 
nize their false religion, their barbarous customs, and arbi- 
trary laws ;— and all this, that we may securely and at our ease 
carry on the work of pillage and of plunder, — all this, that 
we may continue unmolested to worship the mighty god 
Mammon, no matter though it be in the shrine of the crudest 
superstition, and the bloodiest idolatry that ever desecrat- 
ed the earth, or brutalized the race of man." Let those as- 
sertors of the political objection, whose overt acts, belying 
their profession, but too plainly betray these to be the genu- 
ine sentiments of their heart, the actuating principles of their 
conduct : — Let them for once act the part of honest men : — 
let them for once exhibit at least one attribute of the British 
character — and that is manly British courage : — let them for 
once plainly speak out ; — and we venture to assure them that 
they will meet with a warm reception. Placed by their own 
inhuman selfishness beyond the pale of ordinary dealing, 
instead of being any longer received with the cold and for- 
mal courtesies of argument, they will be met with one united 
front of holy indignation on the part of an outraged Chris- 
tian people. 

But there is a more sober class of political objectors that 
would recoil, with a feeling somewhat akin to horror, from 
the conscious entertainment of such views. They, too, dread 
the prospect of a separation of India fromBritain. The causes 
of dread may be of a character somewhat vague and undefin- 
ed. They may think, perhaps, of the battles fought, and the 
victories won in achieving the conquest of that distant land. 
They may think of the laurels which that singular conquest 
has entwined around the brows of our statesmen and warriors. 
They may think of the treasures which it has poured into 
the lap of Britain. They may think of the fresh lustre 
which it has added to the British Crown. And they may — 
not without good reason — conclude that, on the day of sepa- 
ration, the sun of Britain, thus shorn of his orient beams, 
must set in darkness, and set perhaps for ever. Be the causes 



424 



of uneasiness, however, at the thought of the contemplated 
loss what they may, these cannot but eye, askance, the labours 
of missionaries as likely to pave the way for it. 

Now, we may fairly meet this class of political objectors 
on their own ground, and still triumphantly vindicate the 
missionary cause. 

Granting, merely for the sake of argument, that their 
worst apprehensions are to be realized, and that the inevit- 
able result of Christianizing India will be to sever it politi- 
cally from Britain ; — will the friends of missions alone be 
chargeable with the production of such an untoward event ? 
With emphasis, we would reply, nay. The British Legisla- 
ture has now happily relieved all societies at home, and all mis- 
sionaries abroad, from the responsibility, by transferring that re- 
sponsibility to itself. Look at the Act of Parliament of 1813, 
passed by the Lords and Commons, and sealed by the Koyal 
signet. No matter at whose instigation the Act was passed ; 
— since passed it has been, formally and deliberately — and is 
now a standing ordinance of the Supreme Legislature of the 
United Kingdom. By that Act, legal permission is granted 
to missionaries, and other religious teachers, to settle in India ; 
and the terms in which that permission is ceded, are very ex- 
plicit. The special clause thus begins : — " And whereas it is 
the duty of this country to promote the interest and happiness 
of the native inhabitants of the British dominions in India, 
and such measures ought to be adopted as may tend to the in- 
troduction among them of useful knowledge, and of religious and 
moral improvement : and in furtherance of the above objects, 
sufficient facilities ought to be afforded by law to persons 
desirous of going to and remaining in India, for the purpose 
of accomplishing those benevolent designs" &c. In this 
clause, "religious and moral improvement" is as expressly con- 
templated and provided for, as " the introduction of useful 
knowledge f and the adoption of practical measures for the 
dissemination of both, is declared to be the duty of this coun- 
try. From this, it is clear, that the British Legislature was 
prepared to anticipate any possible changes which might arise 
from " the introduction of useful knowledge and of religious 



425 



and moral improvement; —prepared to regard these as " the 
accomplishment of benevolent designs. 11 Be the consequences, 
then, of introducing our " useful knowledge; 1 and our " reli- 
gion and morals 1 '' into India, what they may, is it not clear 
beyond debate, that the British Legislature has, by its own 
public and solemn Act, volunteered to assume and incur the 
responsibility of these consequences I And if so, is it not 
the height of injustice to ring the changes for ever on the 
exclusive responsibility of religious societies and their agents, 
in their attempts to instruct and enlighten the people of 
India ? 

But there is a still stronger plea in favour of the friends of 
missions,— a plea which does more than merely exculpate 
them as regards the possible subversion of the British power 
in India, in consequence of the enlightenment of the native 
mind. By Act of Parliament they are fully, formally, and hon- 
ourably acquitted on that head, whatever may be the result 
evolved from the womb of futurity. When the British Le- 
gislature, in 1813, enacted, that " such measures ought to 
be adopted as may tend to the introduction of useful know- 
ledge and of religious and moral improvement 11 among the 
natives of India, it gave a substantial proof of its sincerity, 
by decreeing at the same time, that the Executive should ex- 
pend at least ten thousand pounds a-year for " the purpose of 
accomplishing those benevolent designs. 11 How has this part 
of the legislative enactment been carried into effect I For 
many years, the larger proportion of the parliamentary grant 
was expended in actively perpetuating the despotic reign of 
Mahammadan delusion, and Hindu idolatry ! Learned 
Maulavis were hired for inculcating the dogmas of the Ko- 
ran, and learned Brahmans were salaried for initiating pupils 
into the mysteries of the Hindu Shastras. And this was 
designated popular education! This was the equivalent 
provided by the Executive to correspond with what the 
Legislature intended by the expressions, " useful knowledge, 
and religious and moral improvement I 11 Never was an act 
of benevolence more thoroughly stultified in its execution. 
It is not the first time that the Indian' authorities, both at 



426 



home and abroad, have evaded or despised the decisions of the 
Supreme Legislature ; — though it is not often that this has 
been done so openly and fearlessly as by the Chairman of the 
Court of Directors, who, in a bygone generation, wrote ex- 
presslytothe hesitating Governor of Bombay, that "his orders 
were to be the Governor's rules, and not the laws of England, 
which were a heap of nonsense, compiled by a few ignorant 
country gentlemen, who hardly knew how to make laws for 
the good of their own private families, much less for the re- 
gulating of companies and foreign commerce." 

Of late, however, things have been wholly changed. The 
smaller moiety of the Parliamentary grant which before was 
expended on English education, has now become the larger. 
And to it ample additions have accrued from various sources. 
To what, then, is this larger sum now devoted ? It is to " the 
introduction of useful knowledge," chiefly through the medium 
of the English language. One half of the legislative enact- 
ment is thus carried into execution. But, as to the other 
half, or the introduction of " religious and moral improve- 
ment," the Executive has resolved to have nothing to do with 
it. Hence it is that the Government scheme of education in 
India, is a scheme openly, avowedly, and systematically to 
communicate knowledge without religion. 

Now, we have no hesitation in declaring that, if it be one 
main object of Government, — no matter whether for the be- 
nefit of the natives, or its own aggrandisement, — to preserve 
inviolate the political connection of India with Britain, this 
resolution to communicate knowledge without religion is a 
suicidal act. This we declare calmly and deliberately, as 
our unalterable conviction — a conviction founded not on 
speculation or theory, but on observation and experiment. 
We declare it, too, in full anticipation of the shouts of idle 
triumph which the statement may elicit from the inveterate 
enemies of all knowledge on the one hand, and the thunders 
of declamatory abuse from the advocates of mere secular 
knowledge on the other. 

It is idle for men in this land to attempt to cozen us 
by fine writing, into a belief of at least the harmlessness of 



427 



knowledge without religion. On this subject there is a grand 
fallacy abroad, which consists in confounding the abstract with 
the concrete. That may be superlatively excellent in the 
former state, which may prove superlatively noxious in the 
latter. What more enlivening and beautifying than the 
rays of the sun ? Let these impinge upon a good soil, and 
they become the prolific source of all that is profitable 
and lovely in the vegetable creation. Let the same rays 
impinge on a stagnant marsh, and they become the equally 
prolific source of miasmata, pestilence and death. So all 
true knowledge, viewed abstractly by itself, must be pro- 
nounced good. Let it drop on the soil of a sound under- 
standing and an honest heart, and it will become the parent 
of good. But let it fall on a perverted understanding and 
a vitiated heart, and the same knowledge may generate much 
of what is wholly mischievous. It is because the understand- 
ings of all men are by nature darkened, and their hearts by 
nature depraved,— and because no knowledge can savingly 
enlighten the former or regenerate the latter, save the know- 
ledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, brought home by the 
quickening energy of the Holy Spirit ; — it is on this account 
that all other knowledge without religion, instead of a blessing, 
may prove a curse. Were human nature in a state of in- 
nocence and holiness, all true knowledge, literary or scien- 
tific, would be not merely negatively harmless,—it might 
be positively beneficial. But so long as human nature is 
guilty and depraved, such knowledge may become not 
merely negatively useless,— it may prove positively injurious. 
And does not all experience authenticate this conclusion \ 
In this respect, the advocates of the alleged harmlessness of 
knowledge without religion, — not we, are the real speculators. 
Even if their premises were not often altogether inadmissible, 
what are their conclusions at best but unverified theories ? 
Yea more, in this Christian land, they cannot at once subject 
them to the test of a perfect experiment for the purpose of 
verification ; they cannot at once reduce them to practice, 
and so convert them into the results of tried experience. 
And why \ Because in this land there is such a leaven of 



428 



the Christian spirit diffused throughout the mass ; there is 
such a tissue of Christian principle interwoven with the en- 
tire fabric of society ; there is such an atmosphere of Chris- 
tian appliances encompassing like faithful centinels all our 
time-honoured institutions ; — in a word, there is such an ac- 
cumulation and variety of counteractive influences of a moral 
and religious character, as must, for a season at least, neu- 
tralize the experiment of communicating knowledge without 
religion ; and effectually evacuate it of all its most dangerous 
tendencies. 

Hence, of necessity, the utter delusiveness of every appeal 
which can be addressed to the people of this Christian land, 
as to the present harmlessness of a system of education with- 
out religion ! Those who make the appeal, altogether over- 
look the most essential circumstances now alluded to. 
They wholly overlook the purifying and regulating influences 
of our domestic altars, our social Christian intercourse, and 
our Sabbath religious observances. And because by such 
multiplied extraneous influences the genuine tendencies of 
the experiment must for a time be overborne, they, for- 
sooth, pronounce it to be in itself harmless I They might 
as well assure us that a doze of helebore must be a very 
harmless draught ; as there have been many cases where 
those who swallowed it escaped unhurt ; — wilfully suppress- 
ing the important fact, that to the application of some potent 
medicament the patients have been wholly indebted for their 
deliverance from the jaws of death. 

In India, however, there is a fair and open field for test- 
ing the non-religious theory of education. The natives have 
no Sabbaths, and no Christian institutions. Among them 
there is no inculcation of vital influential truth in the family 
circle or in social converse, in the mart of business or in the 
popular assembly. With them there is a multitude of wild 
and scandalous fictions for their creed ; an eternal round of 
unmeaning or revolting ceremonies for their practical reli- 
gion. These fictions and ceremonies can oppose no ade- 
quate resistance to the native tendencies of an enlarged 
communication of " useful knowledge " without religion. 



429 



No. Before it they are driven away like dust before the 
whirlwind. In India, therefore, where there is no atmos- 
phere of sufficiently potent counteractive influences, as in this 
Christian land, the experiment may be made with every pos- 
sible advantage in the way of observing and recording its 
effects. As it may be isolated from all the surrounding in- 
fluences of vital religious truth, its effects may be seen in all 
their directness, and bareness, and nakedness. 

Now, in the metropolis of British India, the experiment 
has actually been tried. It has had more than twenty years 
for its developement. And what have been the fruits ? Of 
these we have seen enough with our own eyes, and heard 
enough with our own ears, to satisfy us that, in the present 
corrupt state of human nature, the genuine native tendency of 
any institution, which attains to full maturity in the commu- 
nication of knowledge without religion, is inimical not merely 
to true religion and sound morals, but also to the political 
peace and wellbeing of a community. We hesitate not to 
affirm that every such institution in India will ultimately be 
found, when perhaps it is too late, nothing better than a ma- 
nufactory of infidels as regards all religion — a manufactory 
of rebels, as regards allegiance to the British Government. 

In the days of thoughtless literary enthusiasm, we used to 
wonder what the poet could mean when he asked — 

Can knowledge have no bounds, but must advance 

So far, to make us wish for ignorance ? 
But we have lived to see the day when experience has 
thrown its elucidating comment on the question. And now we 
respond :— Yes, knowledge can " advance so far ; "—know- 
ledge without religion can " advance so far, to make us even 
wish for ignorance. 11 In other lands we have found " know- 
ledge without religion,' 1 in its unthinking selfishness, advo- 
cate principles which would disorganize society, and plunge it 
into the vortex of anarchy and misrule. We have found 
" knowledge without religion, 11 in its contemptuous pride, 
eye with disdainful scorn the hapless victims of delusion 
and ignorance. We have found " knowledge without re- 
ligion,' 1 in its cruel hard-heartedness, treat with sardonic 



430 



indifference, the woes and sufferings of humanity. We 
have found " knowledge without religion," in its base in- 
gratitude, repay the most lavish and unmeasured kindness 
with malice and persecution. We have found "know- 
ledge without religion/' in its savage lustfulness, over- 
step boundaries which even poor dumb irrationals seem to re- 
spect. We have found " knowledge without religion," in its 
quenching of generous natural affection, remorselessly trample 
under foot some of the dearest and the tenderest ties which 
link man to man in the domestic circle ; so that it was no 
uncommon case for a father, who had witnessed and 
smarted under these effects, to bring his child, saying, 
" I wish my son to learn English, as that may in many 
ways promote his best interests. And if the penalty of so 
doing must be, that he forsake his ancestorial faith, I would 
rather see him become a Christian in your institution, how- 
ever much I would deplore the event, than an apostate in 
the Government College, without any religion at all." We 
have found " knowledge without religion," in its atheistic 
fanaticism, ravingly blaspheme the very God of heaven, in 
whom " we live, and move, and have our being." W"e have 
found " knowledge without religion," in its contempt of con- 
stituted authority, breathe sentiments of rebelliousness, say- 
ing, " We are very much obliged to our foreign rulers for 
the knowledge which has let us into the secret of their weak- 
ness and our own strength — the knowledge which must qua- 
lify us speedily to get quit of them, and undertake the ma- 
nagement of our own civil and military affairs without their 
help." All this, and much more, have we found among the 
legitimate fruits of " knowledge without religion." The last 
of these findings, in particular, we once formally offered to 
the very highest authority in the land to substantiate by over- 
whelming evidence ; in order, if possible, to open the eyes of 
our British rulers to the ultimate dangerousness of the Go- 
vernment educational schemes. After all this, have we not 
good ground for reiterating the declaration that " know- 
ledge without religion" may advance so far to make us all 
wish again for the reign of ignorance ? And can it be too 



431 



frequently impressed upon us that knowledge, like a two- 
edged sword, can cut either way,— and that every thing de- 
pends on the arm which wields it? Can it be too often reiterat- 
ed, that, in the hands of religion, it may, like the touch of 
Midas, convert all things into gold ; but, in the hands of irre- 
ligion, may, like the head of Medusa, turn them all into stone? 
Yes, verily, — knowledge with religion, — knowledge as the 
handmaid of true religion, — is fraught with power to trans- 
form the barren wilderness of mind into a garden bedecked 
with reason and high intelligence ; but, knowledge without 
religion, — knowledge as the antagonist of religion, — is armed 
with potency to rebarbarize the globe. 

Such being the destructive tendencies of " knowledge with- 
out religion, 11 and such the anti-religious character of Govern- 
ment schemes of education in the East, would any one ask, 
Who are at this moment really the truest and the best friends 
of the British Government in India ! May we not with con- 
fident boldness reply, Tliey are the humble missionaries of the 
Cross! These come in most opportunely, to fill up the dark void 
which Government itself has created, and which it is either un- 
able or unwilling to supply. These come in with the softening 
and hallowing doctrines of Christianity; which, like oil poured 
upon the troubled waters, tend to assuage the tumult of anti- 
religious, anti-social, and anti-loyal turbulence. Every convert 
becomes a steady friend and supporter of the present Govern- 
ment ; not from mere personal interest or purblind partiality, 
but from an enlightened conviction that, compared with the 
native Hindu or Mahammadan dynasties, it has, with all its 
faults, proved a source of manifold blessings to his native 
land. The missionaries thus labour, and labour successfully 
too, in conciliating the natives to the British sway. Indeed, 
if they had been hired, and sent out on purpose to achieve 
this end, they could not possibly have promoted it more ef- 
fectually than they do at present. And they do it, from mo- 
tives the most noble, generous, and disinterested. They see 
men raging against the Lord and his Anointed, — hateful and 
hating one another, — and their language is, As patriot citi- 
zens of Zion, as loyal subjects of the King of kings, we can- 



432 



not, we dare not withhold that sublimer knowledge which 
will restore men to their offended Maker ; and by so doing, 
impart the power and the will to exercise all the reciprocities 
of kindliness and goodwill among their fellows. The mis- 
sionaries see men disaffected to the Government under which 
they are born ; they believe that Government to be, on the 
whole, a blessing to the country, — and their language is, As 
patriot citizens of this earthly kingdom, as loyal subjects of 
the Crown of Britain, we cannot, we dare not, withhold that 
controlling knowledge which by teaching all to fear God, 
renders it imperative, upon them to honour the king and all 
" the powers that be" as " ordained by God." 

The missionaries thus virtually labour to correct the blun- 
ders of Government, and to save it from the ruinous conse- 
quences of its own unenlightened policy. They are in fact 
better friends to the Government than the Government is to 
itself. If the ingenuity of the most malignant foe had been at 
work to devise the most effectual plan for silently, but surely 
undermining the British power, it could not have contrived 
any system more thoroughly adapted to such an end, than that 
which Government itself has instituted. The more triumph- 
ant the missionary cause, the more will the evils of the Go- 
vernment system be neutralized and counteracted. The 
Government plan would accelerate the time when India must 
be separated from Britain; the missionary scheme would 
greatly retard the process, and put off the time to a greater 
distance. And thus will it be found, when the day arrives in 
which India is separated from Britain, — as arrive it must, — 
that it has been deferred to a later period, just in proportion 
to the success of the missionary enterprise ! Come, then, ye 
political alarmists, and for once view things in the light of 
facts. If ye do, instead of any longer ignorantly vilifying 
the missionaries as dangerous to the permanence of your 
dominion, you must be led to regard them as they truly are, 
your best friends, — friends, who would save your empire in 
spite of yourselves, and transmit it onwards for ages beyond 
the time when it must have been lost, if left to the opera- 
tion of your own reckless policy! 



433 



Connected especially with India, there is another objec- 
tion very prevalent among a large class of unreflecting econo- 
mists. " Behold; 1 say they, " behold what numbers con- 
stantly leave this country in absolute poverty, and return 
with immense fortunes from India ! If India be a land of 
such boundless wealth, why come to us who are so poor, for 
money to send men thither I Why not secure all the pecu- 
niary means required, in that region where these seem most 
to abound ? " 

Strange inconsideration ! Suppose India were a land of 
gold ; suppose every one of its inhabitants rich as Croesus ; — 
what were that to our purpose ? To whom could we apply ? 
It could only be either to natives or Europeans. To the 
former, would it be reasonable in the first instance to ap- 
ply ? Surely not. For what is our object 2 It is to turn the 
people from dumb idols to serve the living and true God. 
How then could we presume to ask men to contribute to 
the support of agents expressly appointed to demolish that 
scheme of religious belief, to which they themselves are here- 
ditarily and passionately attached ? Far more reasonable 
would it be to petition a conscientious Roman Catholic priest 
to subscribe for the erection of a Protestant chapel opposite 
to his own, for the express purpose of demonstrating that 
he was an idolater —a corrupter of God's word and ordi- 
nances ! There would be neither reason nor common sense 
in such a petition. We must fi^st enlighten the minds of 
those who are in darkness ; and after they have been con- 
vinced of their error and have embraced the truth, we may 
then, and not till then, expect their assistance in support of 
the new faith. This is what we desiderate in behalf of India. 
We crave the means of sending to its people the message 
of salvation ; and when once the knowledge of redemption 
through the blood of Christ has been savingly received, our 
demands at home shall cease. When the number of con- 
verts is multiplied, they will be able and willing to uphold, 
extend, and perpetuate the means of grace. Those treasures 
which they now lavish on idols and idol-worship, will be 
poured upon the altar of Christian devotedness. 

E e 



434 



As to the Europeans who return with great " fortunes," it 
seems to be wholly overlooked, that their being able to re- 
visit their native land laden with such spoils, is one of the 
reasons why they usually have so little to spare for charitable 
purposes abroad ! Thither they go purposely to amass wealth. 
It isneither their wish nor intention to make their home there. 
On the contrary, they uniformly regard themselves only as 
strangers in a strange land — as temporary sojourners in a 
land of voluntary exile. The uppermost desire of their hearts 
is to return as speedily as possible to their native land ; and 
there is a constantly prevailing impression, that any thing 
devoted to what they may regard as extraneous objects, 
is not a mere pecuniary loss, — but a loss entailing the post- 
ponement of the happy day which is to realize the long che- 
rished purpose of their hearts, and the chief end of all their 
labours. Another circumstance is greatly overlooked, -viz., 
the small number of British residents in India altogether. In 
Calcutta, which contains a larger British population than 
any other Indian city, the entire aggregate does not exceed 
three thousand. — including every sex and age ! Among 
these three thousand there are, exactly in the same way as 
among anv similar numbers at home, the unbeliever and 
the scoffer, the careless and the lukewarm. From these 
what efficient aid could we reasonably expect in diffus- 
ing the knowledge of salvation through a crucified Re- 
deemer ? And yet, after deducting these from the scanty 
catalogue, how small a proportion is left endowed with the en- 
lightened understanding and the sanctified heart that would 
prompt them to the exercise of Christian benevolence ? Of 
this small proportion, however, it must, to their eternal hon- 
our, be recorded, that they are liberal in their contributions 
to the cause of Christ far beyond the ordinary standard at 
home. Notwithstanding the multitude of other local claims, 
the very last collection from a mere handful of people in the 
Scotch Church, Calcutta, in behalf of the General Assem- 
bly's Mission, amounted to two hundred and fifty pounds ! 
And this is only a fair specimen of Indo-British liberality. 
But, considering the smallness of the number of con- 



435 



tributors, how insignificant must the entire sum of their 
contributions— even though more than ordinarily liberal,— 
prove ! how inexpressibly disproportionate to the enormous 
extent of the field to be cultivated ! We must then continue 
our appeals to the Christian people of this land, who have 
numbers as well as wealth on their side. And in appealing to 
them in behalf of India in particular, there are special claims 
which may and ought to be enforced. Many, we are remind- 
ed, constantly return from India with fortunes ; and we are 
advised to relinquish our call upon the people at home, and 
trust to India itself,— which is so exhaustless in riches— for 
the means of promoting the missionary enterprise. Now, 
admitting the premises,— and keeping out of view the mon- 
strous incongruity of demanding from heathens the means 
of demolishing heathenism ; or of throwing the entire burden 
on a mere fraction of the British residents— would not reason 
constrain us to draw a directly opposite conclusion ? If such 
wealth be constantly imported from India into Britain, are not 
the people who are thus benefited, bound in honour and in 
gratitude, to make some small recompense in return 1 Are 
they not laid under a debt of obligation which they are 
bound by every principle of an immutable justice, in some 
form or other, to repay ? Oh, it is heartrending to reflect 
on the coldness, the selfishness and the baseness which would 
in such circumstances refuse to acknowledge the obligation, 
or to cancel any portion of the contracted debt ! Whither 
can we go, throughout this land, without being met at every 
turn with remembrancers of India S What city or district 
can we enter without being confronted with some monument 
of the temporal benefits derived from India? On approaching 
one of our great cities we behold a superb dwelling-house, and 
ask, Whose is that ? How often is the answer returned, " O, 
it belongs to such an one who is driving a gainful trade with 
India I* As we proceed, our eyes are fastened on some pub- 
lic edifice which, for architectural beauty, may be the pride 
and the ornament of the city. We ask, What is that? 
How often is the answer returned, " 0, it is such or such a 
charitable institution, founded by such an one who made 



436 

his fortune in India !" Again as we travel along the high- 
way, our attention is directed — here, — to some naturally 
barren spot, which taste and fancy and wealth have trans- 
formed into a villa of surpassing loveliness, — and there to 
some magnificent mansion, with its verdant lawns, and no- 
ble gardens enriched with the products of far distant climes, 
and out-spreading forests which rise in majesty, and crown 
the brows of the neighbouring hills. We ask, Whose are 
these ? How often is the reply, " 0, these belong to this 
one and that, who made their fortunes in India ! " How 
can we help exclaiming, — Is it really so ! Has India been 
drained to adorn our temples of commerce, and swell the 
revenues of our realm ? Has India been drained to bestud 
our cities with establishments for the education of the young 
and the relief of the aged, and open up asylums for our poor 
irrationals I Has India been drained to convert our barren 
knolls into beauteous villas, and spread " the pomp of groves 
and garniture of fields" over hills and valleys otherwise 
doomed to eternal sterility ? Has India been drained to 
pour in the tide of opulence upon our shores ; and, by enhanc- 
ing the value of the soil and multiplying the demands for 
its varied produce, to augment incalculably the comforts and 
enjoyments of the general population ? And shall we coldly 
and selfishly and ungratefully refuse to do aught in return 
for ransacked, impoverished India? Ah, if we do, how 
can we expect to escape those visible retributions in the 
departure of power and the loss of empire, wherewith the 
God of Providence hath ever visited the nations that misim- 
prove their privileges, and abuse their solemn trust ? 

We now proceed to advert briefly to the objections of the 
latitudinarian liberalist. Of these the form assumed by the 
most recent in this country, and especially in India, is, that 
" it is an insult to obtrude our religion on the upholders of 
another faith — that as " every father has the right of 
rearing up his child in the faith in which he himself con- 
scientiously believes, so, when the missionaries instruct the 



437 



child in a religion different from his father, they do thereby 
invade the natural right of the parent and that, moreover, 
« it is a high moral offence to disturb the peace of heathen 
families by attempts to communicate our religious knowledge 
to any of their members 

Of the first of these objections the liberalist ought to be 
heartily ashamed ; seeing that in condemning himself, it re- 
flects not a little on his pretensions to sanity of judgment. 
For, it surely requires nought beyond the grasp of the most 
juvenile understanding to perceive, that— if it be on our part 
an insult to obtrude, by evidence and argument, our religion, 
which is the religion of heaven itself, on the notice of the 
upholders of another faith— it must be, on his part, an insult 
far more gross, far more inexcusable, to obtrude his new- 
fangled earth-born schemes of policy, economy, and educa- 
tion, on the conscientious upholders of other and far different 
systems. 

The second of the objections, it is at once conceded, is of 
a character much more subtle, plausible, and insinuating. 
In reference to the question of " natural right," it must 
be candidly acknowledged to be next to impossible to pro- 
pound an argument which can command an universal, or 
even a general, assent. And why ? Because so long as the 
world is agitated amidst conflicting opinions on the subject 
of religion, so long must large classes of men differ as to the 
fundamental principles on which the solution of the ques- 
tion must hinge. Still, there must be a right and a wrong 
somewhere ; there must be some mode of treating the subject 
in which most reasonable men may be ready to acquiesce. It 
appears to us that at the outset we must pass by that whole 
class of misguided men who consider all religions as alike 
inexpedient and alike false ; since, for them to maintain that 
there are natural rights to teach and support what is pro- 
nounced by themselves to be inexpedient or false, were too 
ridiculous to be imagined. The question must then rest 
chiefly between those who loosely believe that all religions 
are alike expedient and alike pleasing in the sight of Heaven — 
and those who believe that all religions are alike inexpedient^ 



438 



and alike displeasing to God save one, i. e., Christianity. If the 
advocates of the former branch of the alternative could estab- 
lish their position, there would be no great difficulty in ad- 
mitting, that it seemed to be the ordination of Providence 
that the people of every country should inherit a natural 
right to the religious system prevalent amongst them, in the 
same way as they might be said to enjoy a natural right to 
the varied products of their respective soils. But this position 
never has been established to the satisfaction of any number of 
rational and enlightened men. And to proceed without far- 
ther inquiry to deduce inferences from it as to natural rights, 
were to build on a baseless assumption — were to resort to a 
plain " begging of the question." Widely different is the 
case with those who advocate the latter branch of the above 
alternative. They proceed on no assumption of the matter 
in dispute ; they have recourse to no " begging of the ques- 
tion." The truth of Christianity having been demonstrated 
times and ways without number, to the entire satisfaction of 
thousands and tens of thousands of the most rational and 
enlightened men that ever lived, its adherents have, as they 
think, an indisputable title to proceed on the admission of 
its truth. Believing, therefore, as they do, on grounds 
that have never been invalidated, that Christianity is true, 
they are constrained to look upon every other religious sys- 
tem as erroneous — dishonourable to God, and destructive of 
the happiness of man. To be more specific : — they would 
belie their reason and their conscience, did they not, for ex- 
ample, regard Hinduism as a system of error ; and, as such, 
a system, which does all that the impotency of human con- 
trivance can achieve to undeify the Deity, — all that the 
malice of the " powers of darkness" can devise to infatuate 
and ruin man. Accordingly they must deny, absolutely and 
without reserve, the existence of any natural right, on the 
part of any parents, to teach and perpetuate a system of 
falsehood and delusion so loathsome and deadly. In a loose 
general way — agreeably to common parlance, and not in 
strict propriety of language, — it may be said, that the 
father has a natural right to teach his child religion. In 



439 



the same way it may be said, that the father has a 
natural right to command the bodily services of his child. 
But in neither case is the right unlimited. Far other- 
wise. It is subject to a high and solemn responsibility. 
It is necessarily confined to tilings indifferent, to things 
agreeable, or, at least, to things not contrary to the will of 
God— the Supreme Lawgiver. Thus, should the father com- 
mand his child to lend him the aid of his bodily services in 
stealing, or robbing, it is plain that he has overstepped 
his jurisdiction ; and even the law of the land would not dis- 
miss the boy as guiltless in such a case, on the ground of 
his acting under the father's authority. A father has no 
natural right to issue such a command. And if in his igno- 
rance or folly he has done so, it is clear that the command 
is nugatory ;— it is superseded by the contrary command of 
a higher power. If it were not so, God would be conferring 
a natural right to violate his own laws— which is nothing 
short of blasphemy. In like manner, suppose the father to 
have a natural right to teach religion to his child ; it is plain 
that so far as the supposed natural right is concerned, it must 
be expressly confined to the inculcation of what is agreeable 
or at least not contrary to the will of God. Should the 
father, for instance, teach his child that an idol is God, and 
that the idol ought to be worshipped as God, it is palpable 
that he has, in the sight of Heaven, overstepped his juris- 
diction. He can claim no natural right to teach that which 
the Great Creator hath denounced and prohibited. For 
who has the power of conferring a natural right ? The very 
expression imports that this is the sole and inalienable pre- 
rogative of the Great Author of Nature. One step more 
leads to the unanswerable query :— Is it possible, is it for a 
moment to be conceived, that the God of Truth,— the pure and 
the holy God, who cannot look upon sin but with abhorrence, 
—could have conferred on any of his creatures a natural right 
to inculcate any faith like that of Hinduism, i. e., to impart 
the knowledge of a system of hideous error, — that, by so 
doing, He could have enforcedly thesanction of Omniscience 
and the thunders of Omnipotence, the exercise of a privi- 



440 



lege to insult His own Majesty, to violate His own laws, and 
to cover His subjects with confusion, shame, and everlast- 
ing dismay? In the solemnity of apostolic language, we 
exclaim, " God forbid !" Pause, then — is our appeal to the 
liberalist — pause, we beseech you, ere, in your ignorant and 
misdirected zeal for the pretended rights of man, you seri- 
ously entertain a sentiment, which, in its principle, is so de- 
rogatory to the God of heaven, and in its consequences so 
disastrous to the temporal and eternal well-being of man. 

As to " disturbing the peace of heathen families, 1 ' what a 
deplorable ignorance does the objection betray ! — an igno- 
rance unconquerable by any statements which man can sup- 
ply, so long as the heart is unregenerate. Who knows any 
thing of the corruption of human nature, without being con- 
vinced that it is impossible for the sin-condemning doctrines 
of the Gospel to be promulgated without, in a certain sense 
and to a certain extent, " disturbing the peace of families," 
and, it may be, the internal peace of whole kingdoms? 
What mean these emphatic words — " Think not that I am 
come to send peace on earth ; I am not come to send peace, 
but a sword ; to set a man at variance against his father, 
and the daughter against her mother V — Not — what some 
perverse interpreters would have us to believe, — not that He 
who uttered these words was one whose direct design was 
to put the world in a flame of discord and rebellion ! — the 
whole strain of prophecies forbids the impious thought ; the 
annunciation of angels at the birth of the Messiah forbids 
it ; the whole life, precepts, and doctrines of the blessed 
J esus forbid it ; the parting words to his sorrowing disciples 
forbid it; his very title, and a distinguishing one it is, as 
" Prince of Peace," forbids it. What then is the meaning 
of these significant words ? They have been, and may well be, 
paraphrased thus : "Do not expect that I shall be quietly 
owned and submitted to, or that my religion will be readily 
and peaceably embraced ; for if you do, the event will defeat 
and disappoint your expectations. Though I was sent to 
refine and civilize mankind, and root out of their nature all 
sour, unsocial, and mischievous passions, and to make men 



441 



gentle, affable, and condescending in their behaviour, yet, 
through the prevailing degeneracy and corruption of the 
world, I shall prove the occasion of strife and discord, of un- 
natural heats and animosities, of violent hatreds and bloody 
massacres ; and men will, on the account of my religion, break 
through the bond of nature, and the strongest ties of human- 
ity, as if indeed the very end of my coming was, not to give 
peace, but rather division ; to set a man at variance against 
his father, and the daughter against her mother?'' And how 
fearfully has this solemn forewarning been verified ? How 
often has that very Gospel, — which was " Heaven's best gift," 
and sent expressly " to bring peace on earth and good-will 
to the children of men," — been fiercely opposed by the cor- 
ruption of sinful creatures, who constantly mistake its spirit, 
misrepresent its nature, and abuse its blessings ? Aye, and 
how often has it been made the innocent occasion of the shed- 
ding of rivers of human blood ? After this, who need affect 
surprise or evince displeasure at the missionaries on account 
of " the disturbance of the peace of families " by the promulga- 
tion of the Gospel ? It cannot, however, be too often repeated, 
that such a painful effect proceeds from no evil design on 
the part of the missionaries ; — from no evil tendency on the 
part of the Gospel. Quite the contrary. It results directly 
and solely from the opposition made by depraved men them- 
selves to the sin-condemning doctrines of the Cross. These 
doctrines are neither designed nor fitted to produce such 
results. To the evil passions of mankind, which war against 
the salutary restraints of holiness and truth, are these la- 
mentable effects to be attributed. So far then as the spirit 
of the Gospel itself is concerned, these effects may be truly 
characterised as "collateral and incidental." But our Saviour 
emphatically foretold, — and all past experience has verified 
the prophecy, — that from the stubborn and prevailing dege- 
neracy of mankind, effects like those already described must, 
in the first instance, be exhibited in a greater or less degree, 
wherever the Gospel is faithfully proclaimed. In a country 
like Hindustan in particular, where the opposition to the 
spread of the Gospel is so inveterate and so universal, its 



442 



successful issue in the conversion of any member or mem- 
bers of a family may well be expected to be accompanied 
almost inevitably with the wrath, hatred, and revenge of 
those bigoted relations and friends, from whose opinions and 
practices they are obliged conscientiously to differ. If there 
should be no successful issue, the "peace of families " would 
not certainly be much disturbed. In this view of the subject, 
" the disturbance of the peace of families" occasioned by ef- 
forts to propagate the Gospel and by the success attending 
these efforts, might reasonably be considered, — so far as the 
proclamation of the Gospel and the establishment of it in 
every family are concerned, — as a certain indication, however 
undesirable, not a direct necessary result, of the completeness, 
or universality of the missionary triumph. Must the prime 
agents in the movement be, on that account, supposed to 
rejoice, because of the universal disturbance of the peace of 
families \ Malevolence or ignorance may make the supposi- 
tion ; but the principal actors themselves will ever be found 
bewailing the blindness and depravity which can convert the 
noblest product of heaven s boundless love into a source of 
wretchedness to man, and of outrage against Heaven's Lord. 

But it is clear that parties who differ so irreconcileably in 
their estimate of the good to be lost or gained by a change 
of religion, must ever differ proportionately in their estimate 
of the nature of the attempt to effect that change. The one 
class with their equalizing views on the subject of religion, 
may easily conclude that it is a piece of useless toil, if not 
of wanton mischief, " to disturb the peace of families," by 
any efforts to substitute one form of faith for another which 
is not allowed to possess higher claims. The other class, 
with their views of the immeasurable superiority of Chris- 
tianity, must reject this latitudinarian conclusion with the 
disinterested zeal of genuine philanthropy. Led to believe 
that the Christian faith is the only true religion — originally 
announced at the dawn of creation — gradually developed in 
a magnificent chain of prophecy — and gloriously consum- 
mated in the life, sufferings, and death of the Son of God ; — 
that it is the only religion which can sublimate and refine 



443 



human nature; which can exalt it from earth unto the heaven 
of heavens, there to behold, as it were, unveiled, the glories 
of the Great Jehovah; which can cause it to soar aloft without 
bounds or limits to check its swift and resistless move- 
ments, and so advance from one glory to another rising high- 
er and higher in infinite progression ; — Led, we say, to 
believe all this, on the ground of overpowering evidence, 
must we not infer, that to impart a knowledge of this reli- 
gion is to impart a blessing which no finite mind can fully 
comprehend, — is to bestow a treasure richer far than all the 
wealth of " Ormus or of Ind ? " Must we not be convinced 
that, to convey it in obedience to a divine command, is an 
act of duty to God, paramount to the natural wishes of 
corrupt nature, and to rights which are the veriest figments 
of a depraved imagination ? Must we not be persuaded that 
the bestowing of this sublime enriching knowledge is an act 
of purest, holiest, most godlike benevolence ? And must we 
not, of necessity, conclude that those who actively oppose 
the communication of it — no matter on what pretext — do in 
reality oppose the highest good of their fellow-creatures ; 
— that all those who have set on foot the unholy crusade 
and joined in the insane shout against religious instruction, 
are, in the sight of heaven, the bitterest, cruelest enemies 
of the race of man ? 

The next objection to be noticed is that of the luxuriously 
wealthy. How often do we hear individuals of this class loudly 
complain of the varied and unceasing demands of Christian 
benevolence \ How often do we hear them characterise the 
sums so levied as noxious imposts and odious taxes \ How 
often do we hear them brand those who engage in levying 
them as beggars and extortioners ? How often do we find 
them, when hardly pressed, doling out the scantiest pit- 
tance with a grudge ; or perhaps, wholly shutting the mouth 
of the petitioner, by the silencing answer, that " They ham 
Utile or nothing to spare f" 

Little or nothing to spare ! That you have little or no- 



444 



thing to spare must prove your condemnation, not your ex- 
cuse ! The case is so clear that it must flash on every 
candid mind with the force of a self-evident proposition. 
Let us suppose a master to deliver, in loan, five talents to 
one of his servants, saying, Trade with these, and turn 
them to the best account ; — the interest or produce of 
one of them you may reserve for your own maintenance 
and efficiency, as an instrument in my service ; but the 
interest or produce of the other four you must lay out for the 
improvement of my inheritance, after the manner prescribed. 
Now, what, if the servant should prove faithless ; and, — in- 
stead of being satisfied with the share allotted to himself, — 
should appropriate the whole of the remainder, with the ex- 
ception of a mere nominal fraction, — expending it all on his 
own selfish gratifications ? In such a case, it is plain, he 
can have little or nothing left which he can allot to his mas- 
ter's use. But would this amount to any justification of 
his conduct ? Quite the reverse. His having nothing to 
spare for the masters use, in the circumstances supposed, 
must prove the very ground of having the sentence of con- 
dign punishment pronounced upon him. 

Now, is not this the very counterpart to the case of all 
God's creatures, who receive certain talents, such as riches 
and other temporal gifts and possessions, to be employed in 
His service ; and who, instead of so employing them, alienate 
the whole, or nearly the whole, to be consumed on their own 
lusts \ Having thus misappropriated the bounties of heaven, 
they can have little or nothing to spare for the advancement 
of the cause of their Divine Master. But will their inability 
to contribute, shelter them in the day of reckoning % Verily 
it will prove the severest indictment against them in the book 
of God's remembrance. On them the sentence of condem- 
nation must be pronounced; — a condemnation founded on the 
grossest dishonesty, and aggravated by the basest and 
blackest ingratitude. 

How similar the case of our modern luxurious temporizers 
to that of the temporizing Jews in the times of old ! The 
Jews were expressly enjoined, in their countless offerings at 



445 



the altar of the Lord, to bring the best and choicest of all 
their substance. Every thing must be perfect in its kind. 
If the offering consisted of sheep, or goats, or bullocks, or 
lambs, they must all be without spot or blemish. The blind, 
or broken, or maimed — the bruised, or crushed, or cut — in 
short, any creature which had anything superfluous or lacking 
in his parts must not be presented to the Lord. In the latter 
days of degeneracy how did they endeavour to evade God's 
ordinance ! To refuse to bring any offering unto God's 
altar would be to proclaim national atheism. This, there- 
fore, they did not venture to do. What then ? They still 
kept up the form. But instead of any longer presenting 
the choicest and the best at God's altar, they appropriated 
the choicest and the best to themselves. And, in express 
contradiction to the Divine command, the blind, and the 
lame, and the torn, and the maimed, — in a word, the vilest 
and most worthless, they devoted to the service of Jehovah, 
the sovereign Proprietor and bountiful Giver of all ! 

Their insulted Maker at last commissions an inspir- 
ed messenger to appear amongst them. How does he 
deal with the apostatizing people ? Does he, assuming the 
attitude of soft, bland, fawning, simpering complaisance, 
thus address them ? — " Friends and brethren of the house of 
Israel, these offerings of yours are not exactly what the law 
seems to require. Still, they are better than nothing. At 
all events, they are an acknowledgment of your obligation to 
serve the Lord. Besides, the law, in its strict letter, has 
for so long a time fallen into desuetude, that many may 
naturally suppose it now to be altered or modified in its de- 
mands. Though this, however, does not appear to be the 
case ; still, society has now advanced to such a height of 
luxurious refinement, that, to avoid the charge of needless 
singularity, a larger share of substance, it is presumed, may 
be appropriated for your own use than was at all needful in a 
simpler and less artificial age. If ye were suddenly to with- 
draw from your tables and general establishment what was 
formerly devoted to the altar, and restore it to its original 
destination, ye might be reckoned sanctimonious — over-rigid 



446 



— morose — austere. Ye might, in this way, disgust and 
repel your wealthier neighbours. And, by depriving your- 
selves* of the means of reciprocating their visits and enter- 
tainments, you might lose all your influence over them ; and 
thus weaken and damage the general profession of religion 
in the land. Gradually, however, it would be well, by 
abridging somewhat the expenditure on your own selfish 
enjoyments, to consecrate a larger proportion to the 
cause and service of God ; and thus eventually, and by in- 
sensible degrees, return to the perfect standard of the law." 
Was this the style in which the holy seer addressed a 
backsliding people ! Oh no. Filled with jealousy for the 
Lord of Hosts, and roused into indignation at such bare- 
faced embezzlement of His peculiar property, he at once 
launches forth in the strain of withering expostulation — 
To offer the blind, and the lame, and the sick, is it not 
evil S Should I accept this at your hand ! saith the Lord." 
As he proceeds with his message of. stern reproof, he de- 
mands, in a tone of unearthly vehemence, " Will a man 
rob God \ Will a man rob God \ " Nor does he stop short 
here. Personating the Almighty, in whose name he spoke, 
he descends with the tremendous anathema,—" Ye are 
cursed with a curse ; for ye have robbed me, even this whole 
nation." 

Now, in what essential respect does the conduct of modern 
luxurious professors of the name of Christ differ from that of 
the backsliding Jews of old? Is it not your Lord's command 
that ye should honour Him with the best of your substance, 
and with the first-fruits of your increase I But far from obey- 
ing the command, is it not true that ye honour yourselves 
with the best of that substance which He hath given you — that 
ye luxuriate yourselves with the first-fruits of that increase 
which He hath bestowed ! Instead of studying how little 
ve can well expend on yourselves, and how much ye can 
devote to the cause of heaven, is it not your chiefest care 
and concern to study how much ye can expend on your- 
selves, and how little on the cause of heaven ? Ye scale 
the mountains and traverse the forest ; turn the dry land 



447 



into water-courses, and deepen or divert the channels of 
rivers ; plunge into the depths of ocean, and pierce into the 
caverns of the earth ; brave the rigours of the frigid, and 
the fervours of the torrid zone; — in a word, ye lay every pro- 
vince of nature, every element and every clime, under con- 
tribution ! And all, for what I That ye may have more 
abundant means of advancing the glory and honour of your 
Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer? Oh, no. For what 
then \ Let those magnificent mansions, which ye build for 
your own habitations, while the temple of the Lord lies 
waste in this and in other lands ; — mansions, garnished with 
the richest products of nature and of art, and replenished 
with vessels and ornaments of silver, and of gold, and of 
stones most precious : — let those splendid robes of scarlet 
and of purple, and of fine linen, sparkling with the pearls 
and jewels of tropical climes : — let those viands and delica- 
cies, transported to your tables from every distant shore : — 
let those voluptuous couches that roll, pendulous, along the 
streets, bedizened with equipage of every hue and colour : — 
in a word, let those immense establishments, with their 
manifold appurtenances for securing that carnal self-indul- 
gence, which all who name the name of Jesus are bound to 
abandon — and those skilfully contrived expedients for height- 
ening the enjoyment of objects which they are commanded 
not to love, — and those varied appliances for pampering de- 
sires, tastes, and appetites, which they are solemnly enjoined 
to crucify : — Let all these furnish the confounding reply, 
" The earth is mine," saith the Lord, " and the fulness 
thereof. 1 ' " No," say the luxurious professors by their con- 
duct, " the earth is ours, and the fulness thereof." " The 
silver is mine, and the gold is mine," saith the Lord, " and 
the cattle on a thousand hills.'^ " No," say the luxurious 
professors by their conduct, " the silver is ours, and the 
gold is ours ; and ours is the cattle on a thousand hills." 
" The bread you eat, and the raiment wherewith ye are 
clothed, and all other temporal possessions, are mine," saith 
the Lord, — " to you they are lent in trust, to be improved in 
my service, and restored to me on my return, with a large 



448 



revenue of increase ;— occupy till I come/' " No," reply the 
luxurious professors by their conduct, " all these things are 
our own ;— and having a right to do with our own as we will, 
we shall not occupy them in Thy service ; nor expend them for 
the promotion of Thy glory. Our wish and will is to devote 
them to the advancement of our own ends, our own glory 
and honour, our own comfort and gratification." And true 
to their impious and rebellious purpose, do not these 
luxurious professors — professors of the faith of Him, who, 
" though He was rich, yet for their sakes became poor, that 
they through His poverty might become riclT— throw their 
all into the channels of self-pleasing and self-aggrandizement I 
Yea, and when they cannot soar so high as they would, is it 
not their unwearied study to soar as high as they can? In this 
unholy emulation and rivalry, does not every lower grade in 
society struggle hard to press upwards and reach the posi- 
tion of the next higher in the ascending scale? In spite of their 
own denunciations of "a levelling equality," are they not thus, 
in spirit and design, the most perfect levellers ?— labouring, 
though not in a downward, but in an upward direction,— la- 
bouring with might and main to establish one grand and uni- 
versal system of equality ? And having thus exhausted the best 
of what they possess in ministering to their own covetousness, 
pride, and luxury, what can they have left for the service of 
the Great God, the bountiful Giver of all 2— -What, but the 
most wretched and pitiable remnant,— the very refuse and off- 
scourings of those very possessions which are exclusively the 
gift of heaven \ When, therefore, at the call of Christian 
benevolence, or from dread of the rack of stout and sturdy 
importunity, they bring a miserable fraction of this most 
miserable remnant to the service of their God and Saviour, 
what is this but in spirit and in letter to emulate the repro- 
bated conduct of the Jews of old I And were a special mes- 
senger from the Lord of Hosts — another Isaiah or Malachi 
— to rise up amongst us : — were the voice of inspiration once 
more to break upon our ears, in what accents might we ex- 
pect it to address us ?— in accents, surely, that might wring 
confessions from the very stones, if not from awaken- 



449 



ed guilty consciences ! While contrasting your wretched 
offerings, ye luxurious professors ! in the cause of true god- 
liness and benevolence, with your profuse oblations at the 
shrine of worldly conformity, with what stunning effect 
might the Prophet exclaim, " To bring the blind and the 
sick, and the torn and the maimed, — to bring the useless 
and the worthless, the very refuse and offscourings, to the 
altar and treasury of the Lord, is it not evil? — is it not 
evil? Shall I accept this at your hands? saith the Lord. 
Bring me no more such vain oblations ; such offering is an 
abomination to me ; the calling of assemblies I cannot away 
with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 1 ' As his 
soul kindled at the aggravated insolence and contempt of 
such conduct towards the Majesty of heaven, with what 
thrilling power might he cry out, <c Will a man rob God ? — 
Will a man rob God V And, ere the quailing spirit had time 
to breathe, hark ! down might come the thunderbolt of de- 
nunciation, " Ye are cursed with a curse ; for ye have robbed 
me, even this whole nation. 11 

Somewhat similar in words but very different in spirit, is 
the objection of the humble pious poor. They do tell us, and 
they tell us truly, that they have little or nothing to spare. 
Earning with difficulty the bare necessaries of life, they often 
can have little or nothing superabounding for the missionary 
or any other great cause. Their largest contribution may 
appear to their own eye so very minute, compared with the 
magnitude of the object prosecuted, that they are very apt 
to deem it presumption, if not a mockery of heaven, to pre- 
sent it. Now, these must be reminded, that, with a just and 
gracious God, they shall be accepted for what they have, — not 
for what they have not. They must be reminded that a pecu- 
liar blessing from on high accompanies the free-will offering 
of faith, however insignificant. They must be reminded of 
the case of the poor widow who came and threw into the 
treasury turn mites, which make a farthing ; and of the empha- 
tic commendation of the blessed Redeemer, who called His 

F f 



450 



disciples and said unto them, " Verily I say unto you, that 
this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have 
cast into the treasury : for all they did cast in of their abund- 
ance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even 
all her living/ 1 They must be reminded that the greatest 
magnitudes consist of an aggregation of littles. What more 
minute and apparently useless than one or two particles of 
dust ? Yet, such particles sufficiently multiplied may con- 
stitute a mountain or a globe ! When from the effect of a 
long-continued drought the earth is dried and parched,— 
all nature droops and languishes,— what more minute and 
apparently more useless than one or two drops of rain \ Yet 
such drops sufficiently multiplied, may constitute a shower 
which will refresh the chafed ground, and cause it to bud 
and blossom with surpassing luxuriance ! When hundreds 
of millions are to be turned from darkness to light, and from 
the power of Satan unto the living God, what more minute 
and apparently more inadequate than one or two mites from 
the humble poor? Yet several of these mites united may 
purchase a Bible ; that Bible may speed its way across the 
ocean to foreign shores; and there, falling into the hands of 
a heathen, may, through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, 
convert a soul to God. Yea more, such mites sufficiently 
multiplied, may help to send forth a herald of the Cross 
to proclaim the message of salvation to thousands " dead 
in trespasses and in sins: 1 And if, oh ye humble poor ! 
if a Bible purchased, or a Christian ambassador partly sent 
through the aid of your accumulated mites, when accom- 
panied by the sweet incense of your prayers, prove in- 
strumental in bringing one soul to the cross of Christ, — the 
fact may be unnoticed by men, it may be unknown to your- 
selves, — but rest assured that the fact shall be recorded, 
and your names shall be registered in the annals of eter- 
nity. Oh yes ! The kings and great men of the earth 
rear the sculptured statue and the stately monument, in the 
vain hope of transmitting their names with reverence to suc- 
ceeding generations. And yet the sculptured statue and 
the stately monument do crumble into decay, and must finally 



451 



be burnt up with the general wreck of dissolving nature. 
But he who hath been privileged, directly or indirectly, to 
bring one soul to the cross of Christ, hath reared a far more 
enduring monument ; — a monument which shall outlast all 
time, and survive the wreck and ruin of a thousand worlds ; 
— a trophy which is destined to bloom and flourish in immor- 
tal youth in the climes of immortality ; — and which will per- 
petuate the remembrance of him who raised it through the 
boundless duration of eternal ages ! 

It were useless to rehearse the many frivolous pretences 
put forth by narroiv- minded theorists, in order to evade the 
obligation of supporting the missionary enterprise, — such as 
that " without the aid of miracles the world cannot be con- 
verted, and they must withhold their co-operation till these 
are bestowed, 1 ' — that is, till such time as their co-operation 
may not be needed S To all who shelter themselves behind 
this or similar subterfuges, we can only apply the remark of 
the author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm : — " Who- 
ever," says he, " on the plea of hypothetical anticipations, (or 
hypothetical reasonings,) sneaks away from the post of Chris- 
tian duty, must be regarded as possessed of no common sense, 
or no human sympathies. Even if it could be shown on the 
strongest grounds of probability, that we may expect a Divine 
interposition to-morroiv, such as should supersede our labours ; ■ 
still it remains certain, that to-day the tvork of preaching the 
Gospel is the duty of all who call themselves the disciples of 
Christr 

The only objection of an hypothetical nature which at pre- 
sent is at all likely practically to influence the minds of any 
proportion of the professing friends and disciples of the Lord 
Jesus, is that arising from the anticipated destiny of the 
Jewish people. It is now all but universally believed, on the 
clearest testimony of Scripture, that Cod has marvellous things 
in store for the remnant of the seed of Abraham ; — and that 
their call and restoration to the land of their fathers is, in 
some way or other, to be inseparably linked with the bring- 



* 



452 



ing in of a the fulness of the Gentiles." Hence the strangely 
inconsequential inference of many, that all measures for the 
evangelization of the heathen world ought to be suspended 
till such time as the Jews, whether by ordinary or miracu- 
lous means, are reinvested with their long-lost privileges ! 
Do these allow themselves to consider that if their inference 
be valid now, it must have been equally so during the primitive 
a g es 2 — an d that the apostles and their successors, instead of pro- 
claiming the unsearchable riches of Christ to all heathen nations, 
ought to have suspended their evangelistic operations till the Jews, 
who in their time had been " cast off," should be reinstated in 
that national relationship from which they had "fallen away ! " 
Far different has been the conduct of those in every age who 
have resolved to study the dispensations of the Almighty in 
their entireness of mutual bearing and connection; and who 
have resolved to embrace the whole, and not a mere frag- 
ment of revealed duty. Hear the strain in which one of the 
wisest, most acute, and most sagacious of Christian men 
embodies his convictions on the subject of the ultimate con- 
version of God's ancient people, and its influence on the con- 
version of the Gentile nations : — " Every view," says he, 
" that we have thus taken of the great question respecting 
the future prevalence of the Gospel, — while it admonishes of 
the high importance of equal prudence and zeal in the means 
which are employed for its propagation, — serves also, blessed 
be God ! to establish our confidence in its ultimate and uni- 
versal dominion. At what period, or by what particular 
means, whether ordinary or miraculous, the Divine Being 
may be pleased to accomplish the conversion of His ancient 
and peculiar people, it belongs not to us to judge. But it is 
impossible not to anticipate the influence of their conversion 

at whatever time it may take place — in hastening that 

happy time when the spiritual kingdom of the Messiah shall 
extend over the uttermost parts of the earth. Even the 
present condition of the Jews, regarded as the fulfilment of 
prophecy, — their continued existence as a separate people, 
after having been dispersed for more than seventeen hundred 
years, among all nations, — affords one of the strongest argu- 



453 



ments that can be addressed to a reflecting mind, for the Di- 
vine mission of the Saviour of the world, and, consequently, 
for the ultimate triumph of His church on earth. But what 
additional overpowering evidence of Divine truth will it af- 
ford to all other nations, to behold the fulfilment of those 
prophecies which relate to the future greatness of this long- 
despised, and long-neglected race ? When the Messiah shall 
at length manifest himself as the glory of his people Israel, 
— when his outstretched arm shall be visible to every eye, 
in all the splendour of their re-establishment in the abode 
of their fathers, — when the Sun of Righteousness shall again 
rise upon that land in which the redemption of men was ac- 
complished, — when the rays of that divine glory which, to 
the outward eye, seemed to be eclipsed on Mount Calvary, 
shall yet visibly illumine that scene of former humiliation 
and suffering, — it cannot surely be too much to expect that 
the Gentiles shall every where come to His light, and all the 
kings of the earth to the brightness of His rising. The know- 
ledge of the Lord shall then speedily cover the earth, and 
there shall be no longer any thing to hurt or destroy among 
men." But did he who thus expressed himself with such 
emphasis and eloquence, relative to the restoration of the 
J ews, and its influence on the surrounding nations, deem it 
incompatible with his conviction on this head, to engage in 
any exertions in behalf of the Gentile world ? He had not 
so learnt his Bible. No! With equal force and truth, does 
he proceed, saying, " One Christian duty does not supersede 
another. If we be neglectful of the means by which God puts 
it in our power to advance the interest of all, or any, who par- 
take of our common nature, we are unquestionably answerable 
for such neglect. While we are commanded to 6 do good to 
all men,' we are commanded to do it ' as we have opportu- 
nity.' Our opportunity is the criterion of our obligation — 
both of the strength of the obligation itself, and of the sphere 
within which we are called to labour for its fulfilment." 
Again,— "while we anticipate this glorious result," (the happy 
time when the knowledge of the Lord shall universally pre- 
vail,) " let us also respect and honour, as it becomes us ? what- 



454 



ever labour may, under God, be conducive to the gradual 
accomplishment of his glorious purpose. We shall, in this 
way, have the honour to accord and co-operate with the gra- 
cious purpose of heaven, in behalf of our fallen race ; and 
shall at length receive, through Divine grace, the glorious 
recompense of those who, in consequence of their turning 
' many to righteousness, shall shine as stars for ever and 
ever. 

The author of these remarks was not a man of mere words. 
Casting his eyes over the heathen world, he soon beheld a 
door great and effectual opened, in the good providence of 
God, for the spread of the Gospel among the millions of 
idolatrous India. Seizing so favourable an " opportunity 71 as 
" the criterion of his own obligation," he laboured to awaken 
the Church of which he was so bright an ornament, to a due 
sense of her responsibility. Nor did he labour in vain. If 
that great and good man — the venerated father and founder 
of the Church of Scotland's India Mission— had only been alive 
this day, how would his spirit have been stirred up to bless 
and magnify the name of the Lord, for the cheering success of 
that mighty enterprise which he was privileged as the hon- 
oured instrument to originate ! But, while thus rejoicing at 
the progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles, would he look 
askance at those measures which contemplate, under God, 
the conversion of the Jews 1 No ; his capacious mind would 
view both objects as only two departments of one grand evange- 
lizing process ; and his philanthropic heart would rejoice the 
more at the twofold prospect of speedily realizing the glori- 
ous era when both Jews and Gentiles shall be gathered into 
one fold, under the Great Shepherd. And were we all 
thus to rejoice before the Lord, would we not be treading in 
the footsteps of St Paul? While he protested that his "heart's 
desire and prayer to God was, that Israel might be saved T 
and while he laboured beyond measure, " if by any means he 
might save some of them,"" — did he not exult in magnifying 
his office" as "the Apostle of the Gentiles V If, then, we pos- 
sess aught of his spirit, must we not banish all delusive theo- 
ries, and at once exclaim, " Woe be unto us if we preach 



455 



not the Gospel according to the opportunity presented to us, 
whether to Jew, or Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free ! 11 
In the genuine spirit of sectarianism, those who would defer 
any efforts to convert the Gentile nations till the restoration 
of God's ancient people, ring the changes incessantly on one or 
two isolated texts. And not only so, but like all other sectar- 
ists, they quite consistently separate even these texts from 
the context ! Look, for example, at the celebrated passages 
in the eleventh chapter of the Romans, — " Now, if the fall of 
them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them 
the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness V — 
" If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the 
world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the 
dead ? " In perpetually quoting these words, — which do as- 
suredly imply that the future recall of the Jews will be a 
prolific source of revival, enlargement, and blessing to the 
Gentile Churches beyond any former precedent, how seldom 
is attention directed to the words immediately preceding I But 
these words are very significant. " Have they stumbled that 
they should fall?" asks the apostle, "God forbid ; but rather 
through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles to pro- 
voke them to jealousy? Again, " I speak to you Gentiles, if, 
by any means, / may provoke to emulation them which are my 
flesh. 11 Once more, " blindness in part is happened to Israel 
till the fulness of the Gentiles be brought in." These remark- 
able words, in the opinion of the soundest and most recent 
commentators, such as Hodges, Haldane, &c, do clearly im- 
ply that, " as the result and design of the rejection of the 
J ews was the salvation of the Gentiles, so the conversion of 
the latter was designed to bring about the conversion of the 
former. The Gentiles are saved to provoke the J ews to jea- 
lousy ; that is, this is one of the benevolent purposes which God 
designed to accomplish by that event. 11 Again, "The Jews will 
be excited, by seeing God's favour to the Gentiles, to reflect on 
their own fallen condition, and to desire to possess the same 
advantages. When the J ews can no longer hide from them- 
selves that the God of their fathers is among the nations 
whom they abhor, they will be led to consider their ways, and 



456 



brought again into the fold of Israel." Once more, when it is 
said that the partial blindness of the Jews is to continue until 
the conversion of the fulness of the Gentiles, " it does not 
necessarily imply that all the Gentiles are thus to be brought 
in before the conversion of the J ews occurs ; but, that this 
latter event is not to take place until a great multitude 
of the Gentiles have entered into the kingdom of Christ. 1 ' 
" It is a consolation that the J ews are under no exclusion 
that forbids the preaching of the Gospel to them, and using 
every effort for their conversion. Though the national 
rejection will continue till the appointed time, yet indivi- 
duals from among them may at any time be brought to the 
knowledge of God. The blindness of the Jews will yet cease, 
not only as to individuals, but as to the body. It is not 
stated at what time this will happen ; but it is connected 
with the fulness or accession of the Gentiles to the body of 
Christ." "The rejection of the Jews was not intended to 
result in their being finally cast away, but to secure the 
more rapid progress of the Gospel among the heathen, in 
order that their conversion might react upon the J ews, and 
be the means of bringing all at last to the fold of the Re- 
deemer From all this, what is the legitimate inference I 
If, from the passages quoted, it appear indisputable that the 
full enrichment and blessedness of the Gentiles must follow 
the complete restoration of the Jews ; — is it not equally in- 
disputable that a very general and extensive calling of the for- 
mer must precede the national conversion of the latter ; and be 
overruled as one of the leading providential instruments in 
realizing so glorious an event f Now as no calling of the 
Gentiles has yet occurred that will adequately answer to the 
comprehensive phraseology of Scripture, — and as without a 
more extended call of the latter than has yet been wit- 
nessed, the full blessedness of the former cannot be consum- 
mated, — those who long and labour most strenuously for the 
restoration of ancient Israel, should long and labour with 
equal ardour for the promulgation of the Gospel among all 
Gentile nations. And, since the fulness of the Gentiles 
cannot be expected without the antecedent fulness of Israel, 



457 



it becomes those who long and labour for the salvation of the 
former, to long and labour, as far as in them lies, for the 
effectual national conversion of the latter. In a word, it 
well befits all who love the Saviour and the souls of men, in 
imitation of apostolic example, to use all diligence towards 
bringing in the fulness both of Jews and Gentiles, that the 
blessed era may be hastened, when both shall centre in one 
holy brotherhood. 

So much for legitimate deduction from the language of 
Scripture. What light, if any, do existing appearances 
throw upon the subject ? Ignorant of the experience of 
others, we shall simply record our own. About nine years 
ago, it was our privilege to act as a member of a small 
committee in Calcutta for the spread of the Gospel among 
the Jews. The number in that metropolis is but small, 
— averaging about two hundred families. They fluctuate 
exceedingly ; being chiefly strangers engaged in commerce 
from other parts of India — the Eastern Archipelago, and 
the Arabian Gulph. It was soon very palpable that one 
of the chief obstacles to the reception of Christianity was, 
the present condition of the heathen nations. In substance, did 
these Oriental Jews constantly express themselves, — "You 
say that Christianity is the only true religion, and that it was 
destined to pervade the whole world. It is now eighteen hun- 
dred years since its first promulgation. Individuals of our 
nation are scattered over all quarters of the globe. Every 
where we find ourselves confronted by a mass of Pagan ido- 
latry. Christianity is thus shut up within a narrow corner 
of the earth. If it were, as you allege, the true religion, 
and destined to be universal, this could not be. Christianity, 
therefore, cannot be the true religion, — its alleged preten- 
sions to universality being wholly baseless. We must, there- 
fore, still cleave to the law of Moses." Such being the 
strong hostile impression on the Jewish mind in Eastern 
Asia, does it require any argument to prove what a power- 
ful effect would be produced upon it by a general breaking 
down of the surrounding idolatries of the Gentile nations, 
and a general progress towards the reception of Christianity 



458 



instead ? Would not such a general result at least neutral- 
ize, if not annihilate, the staggering objection from the 
present limited extension of the religion of J esus, and the 
consequent almost universal dominion of heathenish worship? 
Would not the spreading progress of Christianity stir up 
the inmost soul of the Jew, to surmise that this abhorred 
faith might, after all, prove to be the true religion, seeing 
that it threatened to become universal? Would not the 
signal reformation, in the external manners and customs, 
of converts from a degrading superstition, and the palpable 
amelioration in their outward temporal estate, still farther 
tend to impress the scattered remnant of Israel with a 
sense of the power and excellency of the Christian faith I 
Would they not, from these and other causes, be more 
mellowed and softened towards a candid if not favour- 
able entertainment of the message of the great salva- 
tion? And if, while numbers were thus every where 
awakening to serious reflection and penitent confession, 
Jehovah did make bare His holy arm, and restore them, as 
a body, to the land of their fathers,— who does not perceive 
how mightily such a marvellous event would be calculated 
to arrest the attention, arouse the inquiries, impress the 
understandings and the hearts of all in every land, among 
whom a knowledge of God's dealings with his peculiar 
people had been previously diffused ? Who does not per- 
ceive, how in this way, the previous call of multitudes from 
among all the Gentile nations would " provoke the Jews to 
jealousy," — leading to their general conversion and national 
restoration ? — and how such general conversion and national 
restoration must inevitably react upon the nations so as to 
lead to the bringing in of their fulness ? If, then, the Word 
of God and existing facts seem to conspire in pointing this 
out as the probable order of events, how unwise, how anti- 
scriptural, to suspend for a moment the present efforts to 
evangelize the Gentiles!— those efforts, the success of which, 
with the Divine blessing, not only insures the rescue of my- 
riads of immortal souls from perdition, but seems destined, 
in the providence of God, to prove eminently instrumental 



459 



towards the future restoration of the house of Israel ! 

those efforts, the success of which is thus designed to hasten 
on the predicted period which shall witness the incorpora- 
tion and integration of both J ews and Gentiles in the bosom 
of one visible universal Church ! 

The form which the favourite objection of the merely nomi- 
nal or sincere but weak-minded professor usually assumes is as 
follows : — " Why talk to us so much about heathenism abroad ? 
Have we not enough of heathens in Scotland and England with- 
out crossing oceans and continents to find them f Labour, there- 
fore, by all means, to convert those at home first; charity begins 
at home ; and then, but not till then, will it be time to turn your 
attention to those abroad.'''' 

It is a matter of simple and notorious fact that this most 
trite of all objections is advanced by many whose whole tone 
and demeanour incontestibly prove, that by them it is employ- 
ed merely as a convenient mask under which to evade the 
calls of Christian benevolence, and throw ridicule on the sub- 
ject of conversion altogether. These do assume the Chris- 
tian name; and could not, therefore, without forfeiting the 
very shadow of a title to it, openly asperse one of the funda- 
mental duties of their faith. But though Christians in name 
they are in reality unbelievers or infidels in heart. Their 
adopting this particular form of objection is designed to 
convey the impression, that they have some concern for the 
maintenance of their faith, and some interest in the spiritual 
welfare of their fellow-men ; — only, at present, the sphere 
of benevolence ought to be contracted. It is designed to be 
implied that the destitute condition of their brethren at 
home has claims on their sympathy, and that they are will- 
ing to do something to promote their conversion. And 
were these once turned to the Lord, it is even designed to 
be insinuated that the case of the heathen abroad might 
then demand serious consideration. 

All the while, however, there may be nothing farther from 
their heart than a vital interest either in the conversion of 



460 



heathen at home or heathen at a distance. Never, never 
would they spontaneously originate any movement for the 
attainment of either object. So far from this, when fairly 
and downrightly caught on their own ground, they too 
often prove the utter hollo wness of all their pretensions. 
Set on foot an enlarged scheme of Christian philanthropy 
for home. In some Highland glen or city lane, which, — from 
long neglect, has been allowed to run into a wilderness of 
heathenism, — propose to erect a fabric for the assembling of 
the people, with a view to their instruction in the knowledge 
of salvation and ultimate conversion to Grod. Gro to the 
more wealthy of those who pray to be excused from contri- 
buting to foreign missions on the ground stated in the pre- 
sent objection. If honest in their profession, will they not 
rejoice to have it in their power to give substantial proof of 
their sincerity, — seeing that you design to accomplish the 
very object, and the only one, which they acknowledge to be 
at present legitimate I Most undoubtedly ! Gk>, then, and 
apply to them for help,— go confidently, and appeal to their 
own avowed principles. Ah ! but they were not prepared to 
be taken so smartly at their word ! They were not prepared 
to have the sincerity of their profession put to so direct, and 
practical, and substantial a test ! Hence, they receive your 
application coldly. They stammer and stagger in their 
utterances. They hesitate and inquire, and inquire and 
hesitate again. At length they contrive to slide away 
from their original ground altogether. Still, they do not 
quarrel with your object. Oh, no ! The object they allow is 
excellent, and they highly approve of it. But their mind is 
now somewhat changed on the subject of means for its at- 
tainment. They do not noio think that the building of a 
Church, or the preaching of the Gospel to the adult and the 
aged, is the best method. They are disposed to conclude 
that the object could be best accomplished by directing your 
attention to the young. They advise you, therefore, as the 
real friends of intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, 
to abandon your present scheme, and institute another ex- 
clusively directed to the cultivation of the youthful mind. 



461 



And, in this case, they assure you, — in order to maintain an 
outward show of consistency, — that you may depend on their 
cordial and liberal support. 

Well, time rolls on ; and, in the flux of circumstances, it 
is in your power to propose the erection of an educational 
seminary in the same locality as that of the intended church. 
You now go with a doubly assured confidence to the pro- 
fessed friends of youthful improvement. But, to your 
amazement and surprise, you find your reception as cold as 
ever. What ! — Do they now disapprove of their own se- 
lected and favourite scheme ? By no means, — if you trust to 
their mere profession. Such disapprobation will not in words 
be avowed. What then ? Why, there are many drawbacks 
and difficulties in the way. The calls for charitable pur- 
poses, at all times so many, of late, in particular, have become 
so multiplied, that they cannot all be attended to. Besides, 
the time of your application has been unhappily chosen. 
They have been newly drained by extra expenses — in build- 
ing houses or improving farms, in supporting public measures 
or helping needy friends, in educating a growing family or 
settling them in the world. Farther still ; — the season has 
been unfavourable ; the produce of the field is deficient ; 
money is scarce ; and, to crown all, the poor are crying for 
meat. " And would you," ask they, in a tone of impas- 
sioned earnestness, and in the language of an appeal which 
they hope to be resistless, " would you have us, by contribut- 
ing at present to your foreign schemes, to rob the poor of bread?' 1 '' 

With men who can be guilty of all this shifting and 
shuffling, it is in vain to argue. It is in vain to tell them 
that all this pleading is but a tissue of wretched sophistry 
and flimsy evasion. To begin with the climax of the ad- 
dress, expressive of such earnest concern for the welfare of 
the poor, — their words seem warm and tender ; but, to the 
eye of Omniscience, the heart may be cold as Polar ice, and 
hard as the nether mill-stone. Such language is too frequent- 
ly uttered only in the spirit of the traitor-disciple, who seem- 
ed to sympathize so intensely with the poor, that he thought 
all wasted which did not go directly to the relief of their tern- 



462 



poral wants.—" Not that he cared for the poor ; but be- 
cause he had the bag, and bare what was put therein." That 
this is no misrepresentation of the spirit by which the pre- 
sent class of objectors is actuated, their actions too often 
testify. Their private voluntary liberalities may be so very 
stinted that they draw down upon themselves a compulsory 
legal assessment. They then talk of being ground to the 
dust ; and complain of the poor as an insupportable burden, 
—to get quit of which they would not sorely regret a visi- 
tation of the plague or of the pestilence. 

It is in vain to tell them that by their refusing to assist 
in planting and upholding the church and the school, they 
are augmenting the evil complained of, a hundredfold. It is 
in vain to tell them how the experience of all ages tends to 
prove that ignorance, indolence, and profligacy, follow close in 
the rear of a destitution of the regular means of moral and 
religious instruction. It is in vain to tell them how ignor- 
ance, indolence, and profligacy, ever have been the fruitful pa- 
rents of penury and want. It is in vain to tell them that the 
royal road towards reducing the number of the poor and 
the needy to the lowest minimum, — consistent with the im- 
perfections of a probationary state,— is vigorously to establish 
the means of conveying moral and religious instruction to the 
entire mass of the population. It is in vain to appeal to the 
resistless inference, that they who withhold their mite from 
the planting of a church or school where it is really needed, 
are only hoarding it up to be drawn forth with double, triple, or 
decuple interest, into the exhausting receiver of a clamant 
poverty,— while, at the same time, they are deeply responsible 
before God for entailing, by their accursed avarice, on thou- 
sands around, all that reckless ignorance and brazen hardi- 
hood of profligacy which never fail to issue in demoralization, 
impoverishment, and death. And if an appeal founded on the 
all-engrossing interests of time, will fail to move,— how idle is 
it to appeal to higher motives deduced from the economy of 
grace ! We might as well expect to sow the wind, and reap 
the whirlwind, as to obviate the foolish cavils, expose 
the glaring inconsistencies, convince the understandings, or 



463 



open the hearts of those whose absorbing worldliness renders 
them, in such matters, argument-proof. With such indivi- 
duals we must at once go to the root of the disease. We 
must calmly, affectionately, yet faithfully address them, say- 
ing, " Miserable, self-blinded, infatuated men ! ye know not 
the plague of your own hearts, — and that is the reason of all 
your apathy and selfishness and inconsistency. Ye advise 
us to abandon the heathen abroad, and begin with the hea- 
then at home. Would that ye were led to act in accord- 
ance with your own counsel ! Charity, you say, begins at 
home. Would that it were exercised where it is most re- 
quired ! There is a boundless world of heathenism abroad; 
and there is, alas, a world of heathenism around you at 
home. But there is another world of heathenism much 
nearer home than either the wilds of Paganism, or the 
wastes of city lanes and rural parishes. That other world, 
as an eloquent writer has in substance remarked, you con- 
stantly carry about with you: — it is "tie little world of hea- 
thenism in your own heart T Would then that in its most 
pungent, and in your case, most appropriate sense, you did 
begin at home — at the home of your own hearts ! Would 
that ye laboured to extirpate the heathenism thence ! And 
if, through Grod's blessing ye succeeded, we venture to pre- 
dict that all your views about heathenism, whether around 
you or at a distance — and all your views of duty regarding 
it, would at once be completely changed. After that, not 
one appeal would be needed to enlist your most devoted ser- 
vices in the missionary cause. In a word, your own conver- 
sion to God, would at once lead you with intensest fer- 
vour, to long, and pray, and labour after the conversion of 
the whole world of heathens whether at home or abroad. For 
if there be one axiom more indisputable than another in 
Christian economics, it is this : — " That the man whose soul is 
largely fraught with the love of Christ, can entertain no objec- 
tions, and can stand in need of no argument to convince him of 
the duty and obligation of propagating the Gospel throughout 
the world? Indeed, so absolutely indisputable is this, that 
the moment a professing believer whispers a suspicion on 



464 



the subject, there is reason to doubt whether he has any 
faith at>ll ; or, if he has, there is reason to conclude that 
it is wellnigh smothered beneath the rubbish of ignorance 
and misapprehension. In the case of such persons, there- 
fore, instead of entering at once into an argument about 
missionary obligation, it is always well to move the previous 
question, and ask, Believest thou the Scriptures ? If the re- 
ply be in the affirmative, the next question should be, Under- 
standest thou practically what thou readest ? For without 
such practical belief and understanding, no one can pos- 
sess the state of mind, either as to knowledge or right feel- 
ing, which is essential towards comprehending the nature 
and object of the missionary enterprise ; or appreciating the 
suitableness and the urgency of the motives which must im- 
pel every genuine disciple to the furtherance of it. 

There is another and a very numerous class by whom the 
present objection is advanced, in arrest of all demands to 
join in supporting the missionary enterprise ;— a class of in- 
dividuals who, in the judgment of charity, may be reckoned 
heirs of salvation. 

These are of the number of the weaker brethren— weak 
not so much in faith and in the spiritual life, as in the un- 
derstanding or power of enlarged comprehension. Their 
souls, it may be, are turned to the Saviour— and on Him 
they may lean as their " well-beloved." But they are so 
occupied in the search after spiritual comforts, or the in- 
vestigation of spiritual frames, or the rehearsal of spiritual 
experiences :— they are so perpetually in quest of spiritual re- 
galement from the sermons of favourite preachers, or the 
publications of favourite authors, or the conversations of 
favourite friends : — in a word, they are so shut up within a 
narrow enclosure of snug selfish spiritualities, that there is 
little room in their hearts, and little leisure in their passing 
hours, for any consideration of the interests of the general 
cause of the Redeemer throughout the world. They are 
themselves all the home in which they feel specially concern- 



465 



ed. Or, if they step over the threshold of their own person- 
ality, it may be to sit in the chair of authority, and to act the 
part of self-installed critics of popular men, or reviewers of 
public measures, or chroniclers of their neighbour's failings, 
or oracles in the coteries of religious fellowship. Or if, 
perchance, they do creep across the narrow domain of 
domiciliary and social piety, it may be zealously to embark 
in upholding the peculiar interest of that section of the 
Christian Church with which they are in communion ; or to 
swell into vastly disproportionate magnitude some minor 
article of faith, or little point of external observance in their 
ritual, order, or discipline ; — that is, zealously to labour in 
attempting to convince themselves and persuade others that 
the small lamp of midnight oil is a vastly more important 
light than the great luminary whose glorious shining causes 
the very stars to hide their heads ! Or if, farther still, they 
ever venture beyond the petty range of party and of sect, 
it may be to exercise their minds a little, and contribute a 
little in endeavouring to provide for the multiplied wants of 
those destitute of the means of grace in the land of their fa- 
thers. But, here, the horizon of their benevolence is wholly 
bounded. Beyond the land of their nativity they have lit- 
tle knowledge, and still less consideration. One might be 
in their society for years, and, so far as they are concerned, 
never know that there were any other human beings on the 
face of the earth worth caring for, except the inhabitants of 
these highly favoured isles, — never know, indeed, but that 
Scotland or England, the Orkneys or the Hebrides, really 
constituted the world. He, therefore, who has traversed the 
ocean, and mingled with men of every colour and of every clime, 
must feel in the fellowship of such people, as if shut up with a 
company of anchorites, in some cleft of the rock, or some 
still deeper cavity towards the centre of the earth. And as 
to the scheme of redemption, in its grandeur, vastness, and 
universality, — embracing the destinies of myriads of the 
human family from the first song of " the morning stars," 
to the sound of " the last trumpet," — it seems to exceed the 
compass of their understanding as far as the cycles of eter- 

Gg 



466 

nity defy the calculations of their arithmetic, or the ampli- 
tudes of space surpass the reach of their corporeal grasp. 

Now, how are we to deal with this race of narrow-viewed 
Christians of every grade and name, whose thoughts of duty 
centre on self; or circulate in the little orbit of family, or 
friends, or neighbourhood, or party, or denomination, or na- 
tive land, — to all of which in succession may be extended the 
appellation of home ? These, when appealed to on behalf of 
the foreign missionary enterprize, object not to the principle 
— but somehow or other they chime in with the objection, 
that the necessities of home ought first to be wholly supplied. 
And in their use of the objection,— though not openly avowed 
in so many words, yet, in the intelligible language of action 
— they do proclaim that, in their estimation, home has at 
present the only claim upon them — that, so far as they are 
concerned, all Christian efforts ought to be confined to home. 
How then are we to deal with this class of recusants ? 

Our treatment of them, it is clear, must be very different 
from that of the former class. Those now in view, we trust, 
are believers ; though their minds are very contracted, and 
their views of the enlarged design of Christianity very inade- 
quate. They accordingly acknowledge the sovereign autho- 
rity of Christ as the great head of the Church — and so far 
as they understand the nature of his ordinances and laws, 
they at once confess their obligation to yield to these an 
implicit obedience. Let us, therefore, summarily address 
them somehow as follows : — You proclaim, not perhaps in 
words, but by the whole tenor of your conduct, that home, in 
one or other of its varied applications, is the only legitimate 
sphere of Christian benevolence. There are enough of 
heathens at home, you say, therefore let us expend all our 
disposable means at home. Now we pray you to consider, — 
seriously and solemnly we beseech you to consider, — whether 
such language, however plausible it may appear to yourselves, 
be taken from the vocabulary of heaven, or unconsciously bor- 
rowed from that of hell ! Be not startled at such plainness 
of speech. Time is passing ; sinners are perishing ; the grave 
is opening; and eternity, with its irreversible awards, is 



467 



nigh at hand, at the very door. We cannot, therefore, 
afford to waste the precious flying moments in idle dal- 
liance of phrase. What, let us ask, is the ultimate design 
of heaven in regard to the spread of the Gospel, as pro- 
mulgated in the sacred oracles I Is it not that, through 
human instrumentality accompanied with the agency of the 
Spirit, its light should be diffused so as to acquire a domi- 
nion co-extensive with the habitable globe ? What, on the 
other hand, has ever been the malignant policy of the great 
enemy of God and man, as sketched in graphic notices in 
the page of Inspiration ? Is it not, at all times, and in all 
places, to eclipse or extinguish the light of the everlasting 
Gospel \ And when he fails in this, has not his next object 
ever been to shut up its hallowed rays within as small a cor- 
ner as he can ? — so as by all means to do the least possible 
good ! And how does he set about the execution of his de- 
signs ? Think of the case of our first parents in paradise. 
The Great Author of their being, most peremptorily enjoin- 
ed them, saying, " Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree 
of knowledge, for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
surely die." But he who was " a liar and a murderer from 
the beginning" dares to contradict his Maker. " God," in- 
sinuates he, " is so good and gracious that He could never 
have laid you under so unconfiding an ordinance, — so rigorous 
and unreasonable a restriction. You may rest assured that 
there is either some mistake as to the terms in which the com- 
mand has been announced, or some misconception as to the 
literal interpretation thereof. Notwithstanding, therefore, 
the apparent prohibition, you may— believe me,— you may eat 
of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and yet you shall not 
surely die, but be as gods, knowing good and evil." The un- 
happy pair were caught in the diabolical stratagem ; they 
ate ; they sinned ; they fell. And up to this day, is not the 
earth burdened with the curse of their transgression \ 

So again, in like manner, as regards the Divine injunc- 
tion to diffuse universally the blessed knowledge of salvation, 
which is designed by God to repair the ruinous effects of par- 
taking of the forbidden " tree of knowledge, of good and evil !" 



468 



He who is exalted to be Head and King of His Church, and 
Governor among the nations, peremptorily enjoined his pro- 
fessing disciples, saying, " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the Gospel to every creature?— promising to them His coun- 
tenance and presence to the end of time. The great adver- 
sary is alarmed for the safety and integrity of his dark and 
dire dominion. This great master of subtilties, ever fertile 
in devices, cunningly contrives to contradict Him, whom, in 
mortal conflict, he was compelled to own as Conqueror and 
Everlasting King. " The Redeemer," secretly whispers he in 
the unwitting soul of this one and that, " is so full of kindness 
and compassion, that He could scarcely have issued an 
edict so authoritative,— demanding services so extensive, 
and exacting such sacrifices of time, and strength, and pro- 
perty. No, no ! There must be some mistake here. De- 
pend upon it, there is some mistake, either in the language 
of the commission itself or in the literal interpretation which 
some austere disciples would put upon it. Rightly and ra- 
tionally interpreted, the words " Go ye into all the world," 
must mean, " Go not into all the world" in its largest and 
most comprehensive sense, but " only to the world of homer 
And, " preach the Gospel to every creature" must signify, 
« Do not preach the Gospel to every creature," in the strict 
literality and universality of that term, but " only to every 
creature at home" It is your privilege, .therefore, and ap- 
parently your duty, just to stay at home—to confine all your 
attention and labours to home,— to preach the Gospel to 
the perishing thousands at home. Surely home has the first 
and highest claims on your benevolence. It is the land of 
your fathers,— the cradle of your youth,— the nurse of all your 
tenderest associations. It must be entwined about your 
hearts by ten thousand peculiar ties— the endearments of 
the domestic circle, the reciprocities of friendship, the 
agencies of business. What, then, have you to do with 
foreign lands?" Such ingenious specious pleading, carried on 
by the promptings of Satan at the bar of a deceitful heart 
too often, alas ! gains easy credit with thousands who in- 
stantly raise the loud shout of " Home / —thousands who 



469 



seem to be caught in the subtile snare, — the insidious plot 
against the Lord and His Anointed ! And speedily do thou- 
sands more re-echo to the shout, saying, "Home, home; 
— there are enough of heathens at home ; enough of work 
to be done at home ; — then, why should we trouble our- 
selves with the heathens of foreign lands I " And thus, 
so far as such Christians are concerned, the Prince of Dark- 
ness is daily and hourly allowed to thwart and defeat the 
merciful designs of the Prince of Light ! The liar and mur- 
derer of souls is daily and hourly allowed to triumph in per- 
petuating the reign of sin and the miseries of the curse 
throughout the greater part of the habitations of guilty re- 
bellious man ! 

We would, therefore, entreat and beseech the members of 
every Christian Church and communion, who are chiefly con- 
cerned in this most solemnizing theme. We would entreat 
and beseech you, as from the borders of the daily grave of 
myriads of fellow-immortals,— rushing, in ignorance and guilt, 
to the bar of the great assize :■ — we would entreat and be- 
seech you, by the goodness of God to your own souls, and 
His severity towards those who believe not,~by the un- 
searchable riches of His grace, and the full "thunder of His 
power" in executing vengeance on the impenitent: — we would 
entreat, we would beseech ; and, if we could, — on our 
bended knees, and prostrate in the dust at the feet of every 
one of you, — we would adjure you to reconsider your most 
fatal, your most anti-Christian determination. Come, 
ponder and decide now. There is not a moment to be 
lost. Say, — Will ye, by inscribing " Home, only home," 
on the banner of your benevolence, any longer fraternize 
with the agents, and do what in you lies to further the 
cruel designs of the arch-apostate ? Or will ye, by em- 
blazoning your standard with the divine watchword of " All 
the world." and " every creature," henceforth prove your- 
selves right leal and trusty soldiers in the conquering army 
of the King of kings ? Make haste, and choose now which 
part ye will. There is no alternative before you ; and there 
must be no delay. By the one act or the other ye must in- 



470 



stantly resolve to side with God or Satan — Christ or Belial. 
And oh, if, in the blindness of your minds, or the perverseness 
of your wills, ye do, consciously or unconsciously, decide in 
favour of the latter ! — " Tell it not in Gath ; publish it not 
in the streets of Askelon," lest the great infidel confederacy 
in every land should sound the loud note of triumph at your 
treasonable decision ; — yea, and the " Nether world" itself, 
with joy— 

" Hear, far and wide ; and all the host of hell, 
With deaf 'ning shout, return the loud acclaim !" 

In conclusion, we call upon all that name the name of 
the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth, to come forth now 
to the mighty warfare about to be waged with the anti- 
Christian powers of the nations. Equipped in the whole 
armour of God, henceforward resolve to silence every objec- 
tion, not so much by learned arguments as by decisive action. 
Never, since the world began, has the voice of Providence 
pealed with louder accents in the ears of a slumbering 
generation. There have been times more signally charac- 
terised by the thunderbolt-visitations of ambitious con- 
querors, or the volcanic eruptions of an infuriated people. 
These, however, have hitherto been either ephemeral in 
duration or comparatively limited in space. But lift up 
your eyes this day, and turn them to the Old World or to the 
New, — to the north, south, east, or west, — and every where 
you behold a deep, sullen, intractable, determined spirit, — 
swiftly circulating in an under-current through the entire 
mass of mankind, — and ever and anon bubbling forth in jets 
of violence upon the surface. It is the innovating spirit of 
change. Already hath it seized upon all plans, all forms, all 
systems, all institutions, all policies, all religions. Already 
does it sweep the wide earth as with a resistless and ever-in- 
creasing torrent, — threatening to hurry the most venerated 
products of all intellects and of all ages into its absorbing 
eddies. And we hear of the earth being filled with the sound 
of preparation, — the tumultuous noise of congregated myriads 
— of passions raging wild and lawless as the waves of ocean, — 



471 



of the fearful dissolutions of law and contempt of authority, 
— of the mercenary jarrings and contentions of opposing 
factions, which infuse their deadly venom into "the very 
sinews of society, — of envyings, and strifes, and never-ending 
discords, that swell to a tremendous height, unsettling the 
foundations of established order, — awakening awful sus- 
pense, and foreboding fears. We hear, in reference to things 
sacred, of scoffings and jestings and pleasantries and flash- 
ings of malignant wit which, like the corruscations of flam- 
ing meteors, dazzle only to bewilder and perplex ; — laugh- 
ing out of the world the doctrines of human depravity 
and guilt and condemnation as the antiquated dogmas of 
gloomy asceticism or gothic misanthropy ! Above all, we 
hear of countless delusive phantasies under the counterfeit 
names of rationalism, utilitarianism, liberalism, spiritualism, 
perfectionism, — and a thousand other isms — that would strike 
down the very corner-stone of revealed truth; and cause all 
faith in it, as fixed and unchangeable, to droop and wither 
and decay, and pass out of the number of recognised exist- 
ences ; — all, all shaking the surface of the social, political, 
and religious waters into a thousand billows, that cross, 
thwart, and devour each other, — causing the hearts of the 
stoutest to quail and fail for fear, and for looking after 
those things which are coming on the earth ! Must we, 
therefore, despair of the ultimate triumph of Divine truth ; 
or mournfully conclude that faith itself may yet be extin- 
guished ? Oh, no. Sooner would the earth be severed into 
fragments than Truth be finally routed, or faith wholly 
evanish. When the great Author and Finisher of our faith 
expired in agonies upon the cross, the rocks rent, the earth 
quaked, and the sun refused his shining. And were all 
faith in Him, — and in those eternal verities that cluster 
around Him as the central sun in the firmament of Truth, 
— finally to expire, methinks all nature would dissolve, or 
teem with the elements of eternal torment. But it is here that 
meetings for prayer and for the spread of the Gospel open 
up one cheering glimpse into the future. Meetings like these 
seem to prove that there is still a righteous remnant in the 



472 



land that sigh and cry over its abominations, and exult in 
the assurance that, however dark the horizon, " all the pro- 
mises do travail with a glorious day of grace. 1 ' When 
we recall the days of old, — how, for the sake of righteous 
Noah, the race of man was saved from being wholly destroy- 
ed by the waters ; and, how, if ten righteous men were found 
in Sodom and Gomorrah, these cities of the plain would not 
be overwhelmed with fire and brimstone from heaven : — and, 
when we think that, in this land there is still a righteous rem- 
nant, — of whose existence, our prayer meetings and other 
evangelical assemblings furnish so precious and delightful a 
testimony ; — who can tell but that, for its sake, the Lord may 
yet be pleased to cause the ark of our covenant to ride in 
safety over the troubled waters, and to land us in the haven 
of quiet and unchanging rest ? Oh, let us then, as many as 
believe in the Lord our Righteousness, be roused from our 
drowsy slumber. The night is far spent — the day is at hand. 
The emissaries of darkness, — whose name, for multitude, is 
legion, — knowing that their time is short, every where con- 
federate against the Lord and His Anointed. Is it not 
high time, then, that all who are loyal to our heavenly 
King should united — unite in those bonds of love, which are 
indissoluble, because love is eternal. And if in the contest 
we perish, let us resolve to perish in the breach, — that our 
heroic death may become the life of an imperishable cause. 
Let us rally round the great Captain of Salvation. And, as 
we march under His banner, resolved to conquer or to die, 
oh, let us disdain the watchword of party or of sect — of 
country or of home. Let our battle-song, like that of pro- 
phets, and apostles, and martyrs, still be — 

" Salvation, oh, salvation, 
The joyous sound proclaim, 
Till earth's remotest nation 
Has learnt Messiah's name." 



CHAPTER VI, 



BRIEF NOTICE OF THE EARLY RISE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND^ 
INDIA MISSION. 

The Church of Christ ceases to flourish when it ceases to he 
missionary — Towards the close of last century, the Protestant 
Churches began to awaken from their long slumber — The Church 
of Scotland, which for years had maintained the attitude of specta- 
tor, at length resolves, in 1824, in its national corporate capacity, 
to embark on a missionary enterprise — Committee appointed by 
the General Assembly to conduct it — Rudimental conception of an 
education and preaching mission to India as originally announced 
and approved of by the General Assembly — Drlnglis the undisputed 
author of it — Evidence of this assertion — Notices of preparatory mea- 
sures during the years 1825, 6, 7, 8— In 1829 the first Missionary 

nominated — His disastrous voyage to India, and reception there Dr 

Bryce — Difficulties in ascertaining the existing state of things, with 
a view to missionary operation — Reasons for preferring to a rural 
station Calcutta, as the centre of future labours — The primary 
design to establish a central Institution for higher education Rea- 
sons for abandoning this design at the outset— Resolutions to insti- 
tute preparatory schools— Elementary schools in the Bengali or ver- 
nacular dialect totally inefficient for the purposes of a higher Institu- 
tion— Choice to be made between Sanskrit and English as the me- 
dium of superior instruction — English pronounced the grand in- 
strument for conveying the entire range of European knowledge 
literary, scientific, and theological, to the select few who, in various 
ways, were to influence the minds of their country men— Account 
of the opening of the first English mission-seminary with a view 
to an enlarged European education— Various incidents connected 
therewith— Introduction of the intellectual or mental developemett t 
system of tuition— The Bible an essential part of the scheme of in- 
struction—Notices of the early impression produced by its perusal 



474 

—Illustrations of the effect of general knowledge in demolishing 
the sacred authority of the Shastr as— Various refections arising 
out of this subject— Vicissitudes of the first twelvemonth— First 
public examination of the Institution— Its happy effect on the Eu- 
ropean and native community —Some of the present and anticipat- 
ed results of the Educational part of the system pointed out— Its 
general bearing on the evangelization of India. 

When, from amid the storms of Popish persecution, and 
the troubled ocean of contending factions, the Reformed 
Churches at length reared their placid brows into an atmos- 
phere of profoundest calm, they appear to have resolved to 
enjoy a breathing-time of repose, as the purchase of their 
struggles, and the consummation of their triumphs. Unwise 
resolution ! Fatal inaction ! And why \ Because the pre- 
sent is not the appointed season of the Church's rest, but of 
the Church's warfare. The supreme function which she has 
been constituted to discharge, under the existing dispen- 
sation, is to achieve the spiritual conquest of " the world 11 
of " all nations. 11 In the vigorous attempt to discharge this 
sublime function aright, she has ever experienced the pro- 
mised blessing from on High in all its divine plenitude. In 
neglecting to discharge it, she has ever been bereft of the pro- 
mised blessing; and has, in consequence, again and again been 
smitten with the blight of spiritual barrenness. Untiring ac- 
tivity is the very life of every warrior ; and there is no ex- 
emption in favour of those who wield the sword of the Spirit. 
Consult past history, and ask, How came the hero who forced 
the Pyrenees and scaled the Alps— the victor in a hundred 
battles— how came he to be at length subdued? What 
neither the craggy Pyrenees nor the icy Alps, the wasting 
siege nor the sanguinary battle, could ever have effected, 
was more than realized by a temporary respite from the 
strife of arms. It was the inglorious ease and luxurious in- 
dulgences of Capua, that unnerved the sinews of the Car- 
thaginian's manly strength,— drying up the springs of his 
martial prowess ;_and thus more than undid what had tri- 
umphantly withstood the shock of Rome's veteran legions 
on the bloody plains of Canme. So it has ever been with 



475 



the Church militant on earth. The season of her spiritual 
warfare with the ungodliness and heathenism of the nations, 
has ever been the season of her greatest inward prosperity. 
The season of her sluggish ignominious repose, has ever been 
the season of her internal lassitude and decline. 

Towards the close of last century, the Protestant Churches 
began to awake from their lethargy. The tide of philan- 
thropy began to flow at large over its ancient narrow boun- 
daries. The world once more began to exhibit the sublime 
spectacle of multitudes of all denominations, in their collec- 
tive as well as individual capacities, displaying the activities 
of reawakened natures, and causing the earth to resound 
with the praises, and be enriched with the fruits of a divine 
benevolence. And though the Church of Scotland, as a 
National Church, continued for a time to maintain the atti- 
tude of spectator rather than fellow-worker, there were still 
individual laymen, and individual ministers, who were not 
behind the " very chiefest" of the promoters of the modern 
evangelistic enterprise. Besides supporting many societies, 
exclusively Scottish,— societies which could rank a Brainard 
among their Missionaries, — were not these men ever ready, 
with a catholicity of sentiment worthy of better times, to lend 
their aid to every scheme, whether of domestic or of foreign 
growth, which had for its object the glory of God and the 
best interests of man ? Among whom did the great reli- 
gious societies of England find more eloquent champions, 
or more successful missionaries, than among the pious clergy 
and laity of Scotland ? Was not a clergyman of the Scot- 
tish Church one of the principal originators of the London 
Missionary Society ?— a Society whose earliest enterprise has 
been blessed of heaven, to the transforming of many a savage 
isle of the Pacific into the choicest realms of the Prince of 
Peace ? And were not the venerable Fuller and the de- 
voted Marshman, and many more besides, ever ready to 
testify, that no where in the United Kingdom, whether 
within or without the pale of their own communion, did 
they, as the accredited advocates of their respective Societies, 
meet with more redundant hospitalities, or overflowing sym- 



476 



pathy, or cordial support, than within the bosom of the 
Church of Scotland ? 

Gradually, however, without previous concert or commu- 
nication, the conception was springing up in the minds of 
many in widely distant parts of the kingdom, that the 
Church of Scotland, in her collective corporate capacity as a 
National Church, ought to acknowledge her obligation to em- 
bark on the great cause of missions,— that she should concen- 
trate her scattered forces in one focal point, and open up to 
her own members an authorised channel for the influx of their 
benevolent contributions. Still the conception long floated 
vaguely, undefinedly, and silently amid the current of other 
thoughts. At length individuals began to speak out in their 
official capacity in the lower Church Courts. Some of these 
Courts were stimulated to send up overtures on the subject 
to the General Assembly— the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judi- 
cature ;— amongst which the Synod of Aberdeen specially dis- 
tinguished itself. When a favourable train was thus provi- 
dentially preparing at home, an energetic memorial dated Cal- 
cutta, December 1823, from the Rev. Dr Bryce, then senior 
clergyman of the Church of Scotland, at Fort- William in the 
East Indies, tended powerfully to attract attention towards 
that benighted land as a peculiarly promising sphere for 
m issionary operation. What now seemed wanting was, that 
some one of weight, authority, and influence should arise 
who could embody the growing spirit at home and abroad 
in an intelligible form, and clothe it in adequate and appro- 
priate expression. Such an organ of the widely prevailing 
wants and wishes of the pious members of the Church of 
Scotland, it pleased the God of Providence to raise up in 
the person of the late revered Dr Inglis ;— a man of lofty 
and commanding intellect, who seldom failed to carry con- 
viction by the marvellous ease wherewith he disembarrassed 
the most mazy theme of its intricacies, not less than by the 
transparent clearness of his statements and the argumenta- 
tive force of his reasonings a man, whose sagacity, acute- 



477 



ness, and comprehensive business-habits were universally 
acknowledged to be unrivalled ; — a man, whose personal hon- 
our and high moral integrity, were held to be so unimpeached 
and unimpeachable, that in almost all difficult cases of Church 
policy he was consulted with like freedom and confidence, 
by opponents as by friends ;— a man, finally, whose unobtru- 
sive but ripening piety threw a halo of mellowed lustre 
over his latter days — irradiated his passage through the dark 
valley — and ceased not to brighten onwards till eclipsed by the 
more glorious sunshine of Jehovah's presence. Accordingly, 
when in the Session of May 1824, a man of such eminent 
endowments stood forth in the General Assembly— the Su- 
preme Representative and Legislative Council of the Church 
— formally to propose that the Church in its national cor- 
porate capacity should organise a mission to heathen lands, 
whole mountains of objections were levelled, entire valleys 
of sceptical doubts were filled up. Late, indeed, it may be, 
but with the advantage of a thousand experiences did the 
representative Body of the Church of Scotland, on that me- 
morable occasion, for the first time officially recognise and 
record their solemn and unanimous conviction, that it was a 
duty which they owed to their God and Saviour— a duty 
which, under the covenant of grace, they owed to their fellow- 
creatures — to engage without delay, in aiding those splendid 
efforts, which aimed at nothing less than the diffusion of 
the light of true science and true religion throughout all 
the habitations of men. While this ordinance specially em- 
braced the cause of foreign missions, it is a fact in itself 
most edifying and worthy of perpetual remembrance, that on 
the very day preceding its adoption, the Assembly had with 
equal unanimity decided on cultivating the almost equally 
necessitous field of home missions.— So that by a double re- 
solution, — proposed and adopted on two successive days,— 
a twofold object, never to be dissevered, was distinctly em- 
braced, namely, the extension of the means of grace, to the 
spiritually destitute at home, and to the spiritually destitute 
abroad. 

In order to carry out into practical effect the Assembly's 



478 



designs respecting the home and foreign fields, it was agreed 
that two separate executive Committees should be appointed 
—selected from all the Presbyteries of the Church, but to 
hold their meetings in Edinburgh,— for the direction and 
management of all the concerns of the projected undertak- 
ings, and of the funds to be provided for their prosecution, 
so far as such direction and management could not be over- 
taken by the Assembly itself— that the general course 'of 
procedure to be followed out, the selection and examination 
of Missionaries and teachers, and all the more particular 
means to be employed, for the accomplishment of the ob- 
jects in view, might with propriety be reserved for the con- 
sideration of the proposed Committees,— it being understood, 
that they should, from time to time, report their opinion 
upon all those points to the General Assembly, before taking 
any steps relative thereto, beyond what the necessity of the 
case might in the meanwhile seem to require. 

And, as in England, it is the high function of our gra- 
cious Sovereign, in the capacity of head of the United Church 
of England and Ireland, by a royal letter, to appoint, from 
time to time, collections to be made in all the Churches of 
England and Ireland, in aid of the Episcopal Society " for 
propagating the Gospel in foreign parts — so, in Scotland, 
that duty naturally devolved on the General Assembly, or 
supreme representative Body of our National Church, in re- 
ference to its own deliberate and unanimous undertakings. 
Hence, the Assembly did " most earnestly and affectionate- 
ly recommend to all ministers of parishes, Government 
churches and chapels of ease,— and the members of the 
Church generally, that they should use their best exertions to 
promote the sacred cause in which the Church had resolved 
to engage for the benefit of our fellow-men at home and 
abroad, by collections, subscriptions, voluntary contributions, 
and all other means which, in their various stations, they 
might be enabled by Providence to employ." 

From their more intimate acquaintance with the neglected 



479 



portions of the home field, particularly of the Highlands and 
islands, measures were adopted with the utmost promptitude 
with a view to overtake the Educational destitution,-— mea- 
sures which have since been extended and amplified so as to 
embrace, according to the means supplied, every necessitous 
district, whether rural or civic, within the bounds of the Church. 
With respect to the foreign department, the final adoption of 
any definite scheme, was, from various unavoidable causes, 
which it were wholly irrelevant now to recount, very much re- 
tarded. One point was speedily determined. The original 
resolution expressive of obligation to the Great Head of the 
Church, and of sympathy with our perishing fellow-men, 
recognised " the world" as the only legitimate and scriptural 
" field" for the missionary enterprise. But the inadequacy 
of available resources at once to overtake all, of necessity com- 
pelled the Church to select some section of " the field" for 
initial operations. For reasons potent and manifold, the posi- 
tion chosen was India.— India, which, in territorial extent, is 
at least forty times the size of all Scotland — India, whose popu- 
lation is at least fifty times the aggregate of all Scotland— -In- 
dia, compared with which, in reference to a supply of ordained 
preachers of the everlasting Gospel, Scotland, though still desti- 
tute, is provided for in the overwhelmingly disproportionate ratio 
of a thousand to one ! — and even Greenland and Labrador, the 
West India and South Sea islands, Hottentotland and New 
Zealand, in the vastly unequal ratio of a hundred to one ! 

As to the practical plan or method of procedure to be 
adopted and prosecuted on the chosen field of labour, the 
general conception — as summarily embodied in the report of 
Committee to the General Assembly of 1825, and somewhat 
more largely in the subsequent pastoral letter addressed to 
the people of Scotland,— may be thus briefly stated.-— While 
the preaching of the Gospel was to hold the foremost and most 
distinguished place in any system of operations that might 
eventually be adopted, it was purposed from the very com- 
mencement, to institute and support seminaries for educa- 
tion of various grades,— as grand auxiliary instruments in 
removing deep-rooted prejudices; in preparing the mind 



480 



more attentively to listen to, and more intelligently to com- 
prehend the sublime discoveries of Christianity ; and, above 
all, in rearing a body of well-qualified natives, who, as 
teachers and preachers of the Word of Life, might en- 
gage in the mighty work of emancipating their countrymen 
from the yoke of spiritual thraldom, and conferring the pre- 
cious boon of that liberty wherewith Christ maketh His 
people free. In order to; give coherence efficiency and 
unity to the whole system, and bring to maturity the more 
vigorous shoots that might have sprung from the prepara- 
tory culture in elementary and other schools, it was also 
from the first, resolved that a central or collegiate Institu- 
tion should be established for communicating a knowledge 
of the higher branches of literature, science, and Christian 
theology.— So much, indeed, did the establishment of such 
a seminary enter into the original designs of the General As- 
sembly, as fully appears from their printed records,— that 
it was intended, if possible, to be the first. 

At the commencement of the undertaking, it was resolved, 
agreeably to the recommendation of the Committee, that 
the central seminary (with branch-schools in the surround- 
ing country) should be placed " under the charge of a 
Superintendent or Head Master, who was to bean ordained 
minister of our National Church, and not less than two as- 
sistant teachers from this country, together with a certain 
number of additional teachers to be selected from those 
natives who might previously have received the requisite 
6ducation,-that the Superintendent (being, as already said, 
a clergyman) should embrace opportunities, as they occurred, 
to recommend the Gospel of Christ to the faith and accept- 
ance of those to whom he found access— that, with this 
view he ought to court the society of those natives more 
especially, who had already received a liberal education, and 
if encouraged by them, ought to put into their hands such 
tracts, illustrative of the import, the evidences, and the his- 
tory of our Christian faith, as might be sent to him tor 
that purpose, under the authority of the General Assembly, 
—and finally, that he ought also to preach, from time to 



f 



481 

time, in the hearing of such persons, or others who might 
be induced to attend him, either in the hall of the seminary 
over which he presided, or in such other convenient place 
as might be afforded him."" Such, in a few words, was the 
rudiment of the scheme, — as originally conceived and ap- 
proved of by the General Assembly, — which, amid its varied 
modifications and expansions, has ever since been known 
under the designation of the India Mission. 

Of this rudimental scheme the sole, the undisputed author, 
was Dr Inglis. With him it originated ; — not as the result 
of hints and statements embodied in overtures and memo- 
rials to the General Assembly, but as the product of his own 
solitary independent reflection on the known constitution of 
the human mind, and the general history of man. Simple 
it is, — indeed so simple, that many may cry out, Where is the 
novelty or the originality here ? — But it is its very simplicity 
which constitutes the monument of the reflective sagacity of 
its author. Neither in the principle nor in the mere form 
of the scheme itself, is there any thing novel, any thing 
original. In its essential principle and practical working, 
it is only a counterpart of the scheme whereby our Scottish 
Reformers at once perfected and perpetuated the Refor- 
mation in this highly favoured land. Nor was it wholly 
new in the history of modern missions. Many a zealous 
missionary had, from the experience of a thousand painful 
failures, been driven into the proposal or adoption of some- 
thing similar. But considering the fundamental principle 
on which modern missions started ; considering the tenacity 
wherewith their most zealous supporters continued to cling 
almost exclusively to that principle; considering also the 
host of misapprehensions to which any compound scheme of 
teaching and preaching was naturally exposed ; — it was some- 
thing novel, something original in the history of missions, for 
the founder of a new one to stand forth and formally pro- 
pound such a scheme as his initial measure. It was some- 
thing novel, something original for a man in his closet, by 
abstract reasoning on general principles, to excogitate a 
scheme which the dire necessities of experience had already, 



482 



at least partially, forced on the attention of others. And it 
is all the more remarkable, inasmuch as the author was at 
the time wholly ; ignorant of those more popular and intelli- 
gible arguments, whereby the wisdom of the scheme may now 
be triumphantly vindicated ; — such as the potency of all true 
knowledge in demolishing the stupendous system of Hindu- 
ism. Of arguments of this description, both the original 
author and the original executor of the compound scheme 
were alike ignorant ; since these gradually developed them- 
selves in the progress of the work abroad. 

It was not in 1824 that Dr Inglis first conceived his 
rudimental idea of the scheme of an Indian Mission. In 
a published sermon preached before " the Incorporated 
Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge," 
on June 5, 1818, all the principles which led to the for- 
mation of that scheme are distinctly unfolded and eluci- 
dated. In that discourse the author, by a brief but mas- 
terly chain of argument, shows that there is something 
in the very nature of our religion, which so accords with 
the Scripture intimations of its ultimate universal preva- 
lence, as to encourage our hope that it shall be, at length, 
universally acknowledged among men ; and that the very 
limited measure of the acceptance which it has hitherto 
obtained, can be duly accounted for, upon principles con- 
sistent with a belief of its future universal dominion. In 
reference to our present subject, it is laid down as indis- 
putable, that " a man of an understanding mind, habituated 
to thought and reflection, has an advantage over others for 
estimating both the evidence of the Christian doctrine, and 
its accommodation to human wants and necessities. 11 From 
this position, what was the inevitable inference ? It was, 
that " schools for the education of the young, in every de- 
partment of useful knowledge (secular, as well as sacred), 
were calculated to lay a foundation for the success of all 
other means which might be employed for the more general 
diffusion of the Gospel, 11 — these Christian seminaries being 
designed " to lay hold of the human mind in its earliest 
years, — to impart to it, in the first place, those rudiments 



483 



of education, which may lay open to it the sources of re- 
ligious knowledge,— and, while divine truth is presented to its 
reception,— to improve and strengthen by degrees its capa- 
city for appreciating both the import and the evidence of 
what God hath revealed." Against such an inference, two 
objections might be started, which the author virtually an- 
ticipates^ First, it might be asked, Whether this implied 
that a disciplined and cultivated understanding was in all 
cases, or indeed in any, essential to a reception of the faith 
of the Gospel ? No, replies our author. " In what degree 
the exercise of an understanding mind is necessary to our 
entertaining the faith of the Gospel, it would be the height 
of presumption to say. We are in the hand of Him who 
made us, and not only can He fashion us again according to 
His will,— He can male His grace effectual, as it seems to Him 
wise and good, for supplying the defects which arise from either 
the weakness or the want of any natural power or capacity 
whatever. But it is, unquestionably, the way of God to ad- 
dress Himself to our natural powers and capacities, so as to 
make them subservient to our spiritual interests ;— to say 
the least, it is most commonly in this way that His gracious 
purposes appear to be accomplished. It is therefore ob- 
vious that we may entertain a stronger hope of the preva- 
lence of the Gospel among nations which have not hitherto 
received it, in proportion as they shall acquire that intellec- 
tual vigour— that capacity of estimating what is just and 
true,— which results from the cultivation and exercise of the 
understanding." Again, it might be asked, Whether the ex- 
ternal evidence which a cultivated and enlightened under- 
standing alone can estimate, ought to be regarded as, in 
itself and alone, adapted and equivalent to the great end 
of producing the faith of the Gospel ? No, replies our au- 
thor. « It is with too much truth that unbelief is ascribed 
to an evil and corrupt heart. The obstinate attachment of 
the heart to what is evil, has experimentally proved itself 
sufficient to counteract the strongest evidence'; and, though 
it be only the Spirit of all grace that can effectually subdue 
the corrupt dispositions of the heart, God is pleased, in this 



484 



case as in others, to accomplish His purpose by the inter- 
vention of natural means. The intrinsic excellence of the 
Christian doctrine, and its accommodation to our spiritual 
wants are, through Divine grace, made obvious to the eye 
of the mind ; the prejudices of the corrupt heart are there- 
by overcome ; and our inclinations, instead of resisting as 
formerly, the external evidences of the truth, co-operate with 
that evidence towards our establishment in the faith of the 
Gospel. But, so far as faith is in this way produced, it can 
be produced only in those who are more or less qualified to 
estimate the excellence of the Gospel doctrine, and to judge 
of its accommodation to their wants ; — and the better that 
we are qualified by the exercise of our understanding to 
form a just conception of the value of the truth as it is in 
Jesus, the more advantage do we certainly possess (whether 
we improve it or not) for receiving the truth in the love 
of it." 

But whatever difference of opinion may exist among wise 
men as to the degree in which the exercise of an understand- 
ing mind is necessary to our entertaining the faith of the 
Gospel, there can surely be no difference among those who 
reflect at all, as to the necessity of the exercise of an under- 
standing mind to a very considerable degree, on the part of 
those who are destined to proclaim to others the faith of the 
Gospel. On this subject the remarks of our author are in 
his happiest and most conclusive style. " It will be admit- 
ted," says he, " on all hands, that, though the human mind, 
in its rudest and most uncultivated state, were better quali- 
fied than it is, for receiving Divine truth,— a mind, both cul- 
tivated by exercise, and stored with knowledge, is, at any 
rate, indispensable to the Teachers of religion. Now, what- 
ever progress may be made in the conversion of any ignorant 
and uncivilized people, by means of teachers sent to them 
from a more enlightened land, how are such a people to hold 
fast what they have received, unless there shall be ultimately 
found among themselves, men qualified for the office of in- 
structing their brethren \ Or, how shall such an order of 
men be found, — qualified in the degree that is desirable,— 



485 



if means be not previously employed for the cultivation of 
the mind in the various departments of science and useful 
knowledge ? Supposing that the great body of any people 
should, in the sincerity of their hearts, profess themselves 
Christian, but should, at the same time, remain little, if at 
all, capable to give a reason of the faith that is in them ; 
and supposing that there were not among them, any order 
of men, whom education had qualified to guard and fortify 
their minds against such deceivers as might be abroad in 
the world,— aided as deceivers always are, by the corrupt 
propensities of the human heart,— what natural security 
could we have against such a people being speedily betrayed 
into a desertion of the faith of Christ I Even in the most 
enlightened countries, it is to be feared that a large propor- 
tion of the people would be found very poorly qualified to main- 
tain possession of the truth as it is in Jesus, if it were not 
cherished in their hearts, by the admonition and example of 
others, whose intellectual faculties are more improved and 
invigorated than those of the mass of the community. The 
education of a few proves, in this respect, a security to the 
faith of the many. But how is this security to be obtained ? 
how is this important advantage to be wrought out for any 
people who now sit in darkness, without a gradual establish- 
ment of seminaries of learning ; in which the minds of a few, 
who are to be light unto others, may not only be stored with 
useful knowledge, but improved and invigorated by proper 
exercise V From these and other similar views so lucidly and 
powerfully stated in 1818, the proposal of some such scheme 
as that which was promulgated in 1825, followed as natur- 
ally and necessarily as any legitimate corollary from a pro- 
position in geometry. 

In 1826, Dr Inglis wrote in the name of the Committee, 
and widely circulated his celebrated " pastoral address to the 
people of Scotland,"which,— after repelling objections against 
the possibility and expediency of propagating the Gospel in 
India, unfolding the most ample grounds of encouragement, 



486 



and briefly developing the general conception of the scheme to 
be adopted— he thus concludes :— " In taking leave of the 
subject and of you, we feel that there are motives and encou- 
ragements arising out of the work itself to which we exhort 
you, that will have a more powerful effect on your minds, than 
any words or arguments which can be employed. It seems 
impossible that in this case we should not have one common 
feeling ; for it is a feeling which has its origin in the law of 
our nature. Having our own hope in Christ and His salvation, 
it would be altogether unnatural that we should not have a 
desire to communicate this blessed hope to those who, with 
ourselves, have one common father — whom one Grod hath 
created. Is it possible that we can rely on the merits of 
Christ as a Saviour, for the exercise of that mercy and grace, 
by which alone we can be delivered from everlasting misery, 
and made partakers of everlasting happiness, without an ear- 
nest desire to make known the way of salvation through Him 
to others who partake of our common nature ? Or is it pos- 
sible that this benevolent desire should not be promoted and 
strengthened by the precious hope of advancing, at the same 
time, the honour of Him who redeemed us \ Is it possible 
that the promise of the Spirit of all grace to strengthen and 
prosper us in every righteous undertaking, and the most 
special promise imparted to us by our Heavenly Master, in 
reference to this most blessed work, that He will be with us 
alway even unto the end of the world,— should not effectually 
encourage us in such labour of love I Or, is it possible that 
the assurance, which is given us, of the ultimate and univer- 
sal prevalence of the Redeemer's kingdom, should not estab- 
lish our minds in the use of all wise and righteous means for 
hastening that happy time when the knowledge of the Lord 
shall cover the earth \ " These, verily, are weighty evangeli- 
cal pleadings from the pen of one whose thoughts never were 
expressed, till weighed and reweighed in the balance of a 
penetrating judgment,— and which, when expressed, were 
never enunciated except in a style that knew no expletives ! 

In 1827, Dr Inglis reported to the General Assembly, that 
during the past year, the Committee had vigorously applied 



487 



themselves to the requisite means of promoting the subscrip- 
tions and parochial collections, by which they might realize 
the pecuniary fund which was necessary to the accomplish- 
ment of the Assembly's object ; and that, amongst other 
measures, a correspondence was opened with every Presby- 
tery of Scotland, by a communication with at least one of 
its members, with the view of securing, if possible, a univer- 
sal co-operation and support. It is but due to the memory 
of Dr Inglis, to state, that he himself conducted the whole 
of this most voluminous correspondence ; — and that in doing 
so, not in a brief, formal, official style, but with all the am- 
plitude of address which is the dilated expression of a deeply 
interested mind, he underwent an almost incredible amount 
of drudgery and personal labour. And what was the result 
of all these efforts at the end of a twelvemonth \ It was, 
that out of more than nine hundred parish churches and 
fifty-five chapels of ease, collections were made in no more 
th&nfifty-nine parish churches and sixteen chapels," — that the 
aggregate of these did not amount to one thousand pounds,— 
that the subscriptions amounted in extraordinary donations to 
about three hundred, and in annual contributions to about 
ninety pounds ! Such, notwithstanding the earnest appeals, 
the great preparations and the unwearied exertions which 
for two or three years had been made, — such was the amount 
consecrated by the entire Church of Scotland during the 
first twelvemonth, to the support of her own missionary en- 
terprise ! Humiliating though this statement must appear, 
what cause of encouragement and thankfulness to the Most 
High does it afford, when contrasted with the thousands, 
from hundreds of parishes, now annually contributed \ No 
wonder though the indefatigable Convener felt constrained to 
make the reluctant confession, that " the means employed 
had in a great measure failed." But was he on this account 
to be daunted and repulsed ? No ! Deeply persuaded that 
the work was the Lord's, and must finally prevail, he was 
resolved to persevere. And strengthened in this persuasion 
by the most encouraging assurances, from every corner of 
the Church, of the cordial disposition of the clergy to co- 



488 



operate in the laudable undertaking, "as soon as circumstances 
should at all admit,' 1 '' he expressed his trust in the Great Dis- 
poser of all events, that the time might not prove very dis- 
tant when the pious and benevolent cause would wear a very 
different and more propitious aspect. " When engaged," 
said he, " in such a cause, it would ill become us to despond, 
or to relax our efforts, on account of such discouraging cir- 
cumstances, as those to which reference has been made. 
Your Committee feel that such circumstances are only a call 
upon them, in the course of Providence, for more patient 
and energetic endeavours. It may be fairly hoped that, 
when blessed with renewed prosperity, the people of our land 
will not be disinclined to manifest their gratitude for it to 
the Giver of all good, by liberally devoting a portion of what 
He bestows, to the great purpose of advancing and extending 
the Redeemer's kingdom on earth." 

The following year, Dr Inglis was enabled to report that 
the state of the funds had become so favourable as to en- 
courage the Committee " to look out for and select a proper 
person, who, as an ordained minister of our National Church, 
might be sent to India, for the purpose of laying the foun- 
dation of such a seminary of general education and religious 
instruction, as the Assembly had from the beginning pro- 
jected." How pure and single-hearted, how noble and dis- 
interested the views of Dr Inglis and his coadjutors on this 
important subject were, must abundantly appear from the 
following emphatic and impressive statement : — " Your Com- 
mittee,'' remarks Dr Inglis in his official report to the As- 
sembly, " your Committee, at a late meeting, instructed their 
Convener to request the assistance of the Professors of Divi- 
nity in the different Universities of Scotland, for finding a man, 
in all respects qualified for the very important and very delicate 
service in question, and, at the same time, willing to under- 
take the duty. They feel that more depends on a wise and 
prudent selection in this case than upon all [the other exer- 
tions in their power to make. They therefore implore the 
aid of every member of this Assembly, who may have it in 
his power to point out, among those who have a heart for 



489 



the undertaking, any man better qualified than others, for 
the arduous but blessed work to which the person appoint- 
ed will be called to devote himself. And the members of 
your Committee individually trust, that in a case so moment- 
ous and sacred, no man will even suspect them of being in- 
fluenced in their choice by any other motive than a single 
and exclusive regard to the most important of all objects,— 
that of imparting the light of the Gospel to those who now 
sit in darkness." 



Early in 1829 was nominated by the Committee the first 
Missionary ever sent forth by the Church of Scotland, in its 
corporate national capacity, to heathen lands. In a sketch 
so very brief, it is not possible to advert to the variety of 
mental conflicts, religious experiences, peculiar leadings of 
Providence, and other circumstances which gradually pre- 
pared the individual for entertaining so solemn a call. To 
one point only, need farther allusion be made. When,— being 
as yet only on probationary trials before the Presbytery of St 
Andrews,— he was first seriously applied to, on the subject, 
by one of the ablest, most laborious, and most successful 
parochial ministers in Scotland,— the Rev. Dr Ferrie of Kil- 
conquhar,— he at once, on account of youth, inexperience, 
and honest unconsciousness of possessing the requisite qua- 
lifications, shrunk from the responsibility of undertaking an 
office whose importance could only be surpassed by its ac- 
knowledged difficulties. Ready, cheerfully ready, did he 
profess himself to forsake all that he most loved and valued 
m his ; native land, and respond to the summons, saying, 
Lord, here am I, send me"-could he only be satisfied 
that he had a legitimate call, and that his compliance might 
not prove an act of daring presumption. After the tender 
and enlightened Scriptural representations of his reverend 
father and friend on this head had tended to dissipate many 
a gathering cloud from the horizon of simple evangelical 
duty, there were two questions, a positive answer to which 
he at once announced as absolutely indispensable to his en- 



490 



tering even on the preliminary steps towards a negotiation. 
These questions were : First, Will the individual appointed 
to India be under the control and authority of any man or 
body of men, in the station destined to be occupied ? Se- 
condly, Will he be free and unfettered in the adoption of any 
measures which to him may appear best calculated to make 
known the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles ? 
Not many days were suffered to elapse, before it was autho- 
ritatively replied to the first of these queries, " That no 
local control or authority whatsoever, direct or indirect, 
would be exercised over the movements of the Missionary — 
that to the Home Committee of the General Assembly, and 
to it alone, he would be responsible : and to the second, 
of the queries, " That while, besides the direct preaching of 
the word, it was resolved that an educational seminary should 
be founded, specially for the training of native teachers and 
preachers, every thing connected with the mode and manner 
of its organization— the system of tuition and discipline— 
the modifications and adaptations of the original rudimental 
scheme to existing circumstances,— and all other details 
whatsoever would be left solely to the Missionary ; and that, 
in other respects, the most boundless liberty would be con- 
ceded in resorting to whatever means he might deem most 
expedient for the profitable dissemination of divine truth." 
Soon afterwards, the nomination took place. In May of 
the same year, the appointment was formally ratified by the 
General Assembly. On the 12th August, the Missionary 
was ordained to the evangelistic and ministerial office by 
the Presbytery of Edinburgh,— Dr Chalmers having pre- 
sided and officiated with his wonted power and eloquence 
on the solemn occasion. About the middle of October 
(14th) he set sail in the Lady Holland, East Indiaman, 
from Portsmouth. And never most assuredly, as stated 
years ago in an address before the General Assembly,— 
never did the first agent of any society leave his native land, 
" more entirely unfettered, untrammelled, unembarrassed. \ 
When the venerable originator of the mission was asked, 
—and often and earnestly was he asked,— for some injunc- 



491 



tions or directions as to the proper course to be pursued,— 
some hint or general idea, not of what must be, but of what 
he would desire to see realized, if circumstances admitted of 
it,— his invariable reply in effect was, " that the field was so 
new in all its features and circumstances, that instead of 
giving rules for the guidance of others, he should, in a great 
measure be himself guided by the representations sent from 
the field of labour." Accordingly, the Missionary took his 
departure, without any information or instructions what- 
soever beyond what was to be found in the original brief 
resolution of the General Assembly, and the pastoral ad- 
dress of the Convener of its Committee to the people of Scot- 
land. Even the reasons which led Dr Inglis himself to give 
such prominence to the educational part of the scheme were 
not so fully known to him as they are now,— since the sermon 
of June 1818, in which these reasons are most explicitly an- 
nounced, was only put into his hands for the first time, a few 
months ago. 

Up to the time of the Missionary's embarkation, pros- 
perity had so accompanied his every movement, like the 
perpetual sunshine of a cloudless sky, that in his wrest- 
lings by day, and his meditations by night, the utterance of 
the inspired oracle kept pealing in his ears, — " If ye en- 
dure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons ; for 
what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? But if 
ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then 
are ye bastards, and not sons." How can fading me- 
mory recall the searching inquiries to which this impressive 
consideration led him, when about to bid farewell to his na- 
tive shores ? Had he discharged aright all the more obvious 
duties and claims of kindred, friends, and country ? Had 
he duly examined the evidence, the tenor, and reality of his 
call ? Had he rightly weighed the vastly important obliga- 
tions of his new office I Had he fully considered the danger 
of rushing unwarrantably to uphold the ark of the testi- 
mony? Had he carefully surveyed the difficulties, and suf- 
ficiently counted the cost ? Were his prevailing motives 
pure?— the glory of God the chief object ; the love of Christ 



492 



the actuating principle ; the regeneration of perishing sin- 
ners the travail of his soul ; and their final redemption his 
richest recompense of reward? Was he, with his whole 
heart, prepared to give up every idol, relinquish every dar- 
ling pursuit, and for the sake of Christ joyously submit to 
be accounted "the offscouring of all things P Was he 
really so fortified by faith and prayer, that, amid scorn, and 
reproach, and perils, and living deaths, he could cheerfully 
serve an apprenticeship to martyrdom I 

But no sooner had he embarked, than that gracious God 
who has " the times and the seasons" engraven in the roll 
of Providence, caused the day of visitation and of trial to 
arise. Seldom has there been a voyage, from first to last, 
so fraught with disaster and discipline;— within the "floating 
home" of the deep, a fiery furnace from the combustion of 
evil tongues and wicked hearts;— without, unusual vicissitudes 
of tempest and of danger. These, however, were but the 
beginnings of trouble— the first wavings of the rod of chas- 
tisement to prepare for the crushing stroke. On Saturday 
night, the 13th February, the vessel violently struck on the 
rocks of an uninhabited barren island, about thirty miles 
north of Cape Town. With the utmost difficulty the pas- 
sengers and crew escaped with their lives. The noble ves- 
sel soon went to pieces, and almost every thing on board 
perished. The losses of the Missionary were such as could 
not easily be recovered. Besides the loss of personal pro- 
perty, from a collection of books,in every department of know- 
ledge, amounting to upwards of eight hundred distinct works, 
onlya few odd volumes were picked up on the beach,— most of 
them so shattered, or reduced to a state of pulp, as to be of 
little or no value. But what was felt most, as being to him 
irreparable, was the entire loss of all his journals, notes, 
memorandums, essays, &c. &c, the fruits, such as they 
were, of the reflection and research of many years, when he 
possessed special opportunities which he could never expect 
again to realize. " But they are gone," was his own written 
declaration at the time, "they are gone; and blessed be 
God I can say ' gone,' without a murmur. So perish all 



493 



earthly things ; the treasure that is laid up in heaven alone 
is unassailable. God has been to me a God full of mercy ; 
and not the least of His mercies do I find in the cheerful re- 
signation with which he now enables me to feel, and to say, 
' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be 
the name of the Lord.' " 

The only article which was recovered in a wholly unda- 
maged state, was a quarto copy of Bagster's Comprehensive 
Bible and Psalm-book ; which, as the parting memorial of a 
few dear friends, had been carefully wrapped up in leather, 
and thus escaped uninjured by the waters of the briny deep. 
Ah ! the lesson and the schooling of a mysterious Provi- 
dence seemed now complete ; and its designs and intentions 
perfectly developed. He who had thought that he had 
"sifted" his heart " as wheat," and could find no engrossing 
idol lurking there, now discovered that he had been to a 
degree never previously imagined, a wholesale idolater of booh 
and written papers ! It seemed as if the heavens had sud- 
denly opened, and a voice from the Holy One had sounded 
with resistless emphasis in his ears, saying, " Fool that you 
are, to have centred so unduly your cares and anxieties 
and affections, on books and papers ! So intense and de- 
voted was the homage of your heart towards these, in the 
eyes of the heart-searching God, that, as there seemed no 
other method of weaning you from them, your heavenly 
Father, to save you from the doom of an idolater, has in 
mercy to your soul removed the idols— sinking them all 
to the bottom of the deep, or scattering them in useless 
fragments on this desolate shore;— all, all save one, and that 
is, the ever-blessed Book of Life. Here is the Bible for you, 
—grasp it as the richest treasure of infinite wisdom and 
infinite love— a treasure which, in the balance of heaven, 
would outweigh all the books and papers in the universe. 
Go, and prayerfully consult that unerring chart,— that in- 
fallible directory,— humbly trust to it, and to your God; 
and never, never will you have reason to regret that you have 
been violently severed from your idols, as thereby you become 
more firmly linked by the golden chain of grace to the throne 



494 



of the Eternal:' Assuredly, had Jehovah himself, in terms 
such as these, addressed the poor trembling convicted idolater 
in accents of thunder,— when standing apart on that dreary 
African strand,— the gracious designs of Providence could 
not have been more distinctly interpreted, nor the precious 
lesson more ineffaceably engraven on the inner tablet of thesoul. 

The conclusion of a letter addressed at the time to the 
Convener of the Assembly's Committee, is found, on refer- 
ence to the original document, to be as follows :— " Thus 
unexpectedly has perished part of the first fruits of the 
Church of Scotland in the great cause of Christian philan- 
thropy; but the cause of Christ has not perished. The 
former, like the leaves of autumn, may be tossed about by 
every tempest ; the latter, more stable than nature, ever 
reviving with the bloom of youth, will flourish when nature 
herself is no more. The cause of Christ is a heavenly thing, 
and shrinks from the touch of earth. Often has its high 
origin been gloriously vindicated. Often has it cast a 
mockery on the mightiest efforts of human power. Often 
has it gathered strength amid weakness ; become rich amid 
losses; rejoiced amid dangers ; and triumphed amid the fires 
and tortures of hell-enkindled men. And shall the Church 
of Scotland dishonour such a cause, by exhibiting symptoms 
of coldness or despondency, in consequence of the recent 
catastrophe? God forbid! Let her rather arouse herself 
into new energy : let her shake off every earthly alliance 
with the cause of Christ, as a retarding, polluting alliance : 
let her confide less in her own resources, and more in the 
arm of Him who saith, " Not by might, nor by power, but 
by my Spirit:" from her faithful appeals, let the flame of 
devotedness circulate through every parish, and prayers to 
the Lord of the harvest from every dwelling ;— and then may 
we expect her fountains to overflow, for the watering and 
fertilizing of many a dry and parched heathen land. For 
my own part, recent events have made me feel more strongly 
than ever the vanity of earthly things, the hollowness of 
earthly hopes. They have taught me the necessity of being 
" instant in season and out of season," of " spending and 



495 



being spent" in the cause of Christ. My prayer is, though 
at a humble distance, to breathe the spirit, and emulate the 
conduct of those devoted men who have gone before me ; 
and if, like them, I am destined to perish in a foreign land, 
my prayer is, to be enabled cheerfully to perish with the 
song of faith on my lips—' O death, where is thy sting ? O 
grave, where is thy victory V Pardon my warmth—at such 
a season, coldness were spiritual treason." 

Having set sail in another ship from the Cape, on the 7th 
March, a tremendous gale was encountered off the Mauritius, 
in which the vessel well nigh foundered; and at the mouth of 
the Ganges she was overtaken by a hurricane, and violently 
tossed ashore, so that all the horrors of a second shipwreck 
were experienced. On Wednesday evening, 27th May, after 
nearly an eight months' voyage of continuous and varied pe- 
nis, the Missionary with his partner reached Calcutta, more 
dead than alive, through exhaustion and fatigue. It seemed as 
if "the Prince of the power of the air" had marshalled all his 
elements to oppose and prevent their arrival, and it seemed 
(if it be lawful to compare small things with great) as if for 
the gracious purposes of trial and discipline, a certain 
amount of license had been granted to him as in the days of 
old, when, in reference to one of those worthies of whom the 
world was not worthy, « The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, 
all that he hath is in thy power ; only upon himself put not 
forth thine hand." But foiled he was, through sustaining 
grace, m any attempt to extort a rebellious murmuring 
against the dispensations of Providence. The very contrary 
was the effect uniformly produced— even that of calling forth 
and invigorating the energy of faith and confidence in the 
Rock of Ages. In the first letter, dated the very day after 
landing in Calcutta, is found this passage :— " Thus have we 
at length reached our destination, after a voyage at once 
protracted and disastrous. But if, in respect to the things 
of earth, it pained and impoverished, the experience of my 
dear partner and myself leads us solemnly to declare, that 
m respect to spiritual things, it greatly revived and enriched 
us. For the loss of earthly comfort and possession is a rich 



496 



^ain indeed, when accompanied by the increase of that 
treasure which nothing can diminish or impair. Through 
God's blessing we were enabled to view the whole as the 
apparently severe, but unspeakably kind discipline of a Fa- 
ther, 1 who afflict eth not willingly, nor grieveth the children 
of men/ How base were it then to fret ; how ignorant to 
complain : how cowardly to despond \ For where is faith 
without a victory \ Where is victory without a struggle I And 
can there be a struggle without enduring trials, and encoun- 
tering difficulties I To the feeble and dastardly soldier of 
the Cross be all the ease of indolently lagging in the rear ; 
and all the security that can result from being the last to 
engage, and the foremost to escape from approaching dan- 
ger ! To us. we would pray, be the toil, and the hardship, 
and the danger, and the crown of victory for our reward, — 
or death, when maintaining our Master's cause, for an eter- 
nal glory!"' 

On reaching the scene of future labour, after such a voyage, 
the sympathies of the Missionary Brethren and of private 
Christians of all denominations were powerfully called forth. 
To none were we more indebted for acts of kindness than to 
the late Bishop Corrie, then Archdeacon of Calcutta; and to 
the Rev.Dr Bryce.then senior minister of the Scotch Church. 
The conduct of the latter, in particular, was such as to chal- 
lenge a grateful and lasting remembrance. Though the 
event proved that the rudimental scheme adopted by the 
General Assembly was in many essential particulars totally 
different from the one proposed in the Calcutta memorial of 
1823.— and that the first Missionary was to be placed 
under the ecclesiastical control and authority of no man 
or body of men, except the Supreme Council of the Church 
itself, through its own Home Committee— being left as free 
and unembarrassed in all his movements as if he were the 
only Presbyterian in British India ;— it is but justice to the 
senior minister of St Andrew's to say, that he never indicat- 
ed either disappointment or cold indifference. On the con- 



497 



trary, he from the first discharged towards the Missionary 
more than the ordinary offices and courtesies of Christian 
friendship and brotherly regard. With neither the inquiries 
instituted, nor the plans projected, did he ever interfere ; — 
no, not so much as to obtrude his own spontaneous sugges- 
tions. But whenever consulted about any local or other 
difficulty, never did he decline, frankly and promptly, lending 
his counsel or assistance in any way in which either might 
be made to advance the great cause. No sooner was the 
mission organized, than he became its warmest and most 
disinterested advocate ; and ever since, both in India and in 
Britain, has he laboured to promote its general interests with 
a zeal that has never wearied — with an energy that has never 
relaxed. 

Immediately on our arrival, the first impulse was to set on 
foot as exact an inquiry as possible into the existing state 
of things with a view to determine the practical question, 
Where and how we were to commence operations I From 
instituting an immediate inquiry, many dissuasives were 
powerfully urged on the part of friends. But these were not 
allowed to prevail. Even if, agreeably to the usual practice, 
we could have sat down, as they strongly advised, to the ex- 
clusive study of the native languages, there could be no in- 
ternal peace. The mind would ever be roaming into the 
future— ruminating on the thousand possibilities that might 
be undeveloped in its womb, — weighing their probable rela- 
tive importance, and calculating their probable actual mani- 
festation. Besides, no useful suggestions founded on observed 
or ascertained facts, could be offered to the Committee at 
home, that might guide their deliberations, or advantage- 
ously modify their decisions. For these and other reasons, 
the resolution was at once taken to commence inquiry with- 
out delay; and not to desist, if God in mercy bestowed health 
and strength, till something definite, if not satisfactory, might 
be obtained ;— and the result could not certainly be said to 
belie the propriety of the resolution. 

The difficulties that interposed were neither few nor such 
as can readily be conceived at home. To know accurately, 

I i 



498 

it was necessary to inquire personally, and inspect person- 
ally. To personal inspection the season was most unfriendly. 
In the way of personal inquiry, the chief obstacle, altogether 
apart from the physical obstructions, lay in the very scanty 
local information possessed by most of those to whom access 
could be found. To an inquisitive stranger, this ignorance 
of localities and statistical detail, whether referable to the 
physical or moral condition of the country and its inhabit- 
ants, constitutes a striking feature of Anglo-Indian society. 
The cause is obvious. There are no gentlemen at large in 
that society; and comparatively few who have spare time 
or inclination for observing, and inquiring, and record- 
ing facts. All seem intensely and laboriously occupied with 
their various callings. That country, even in a worldly sense, 
is never felt by any to be their home, or the place of their 
res t ; — their whole ambition being to create, as speedily as 
possible, the means of returning for the enjoyment of ease, 
and comfort, and recruited health, in the lands of their 
nativity. One routine, accordingly, is observed day after 
day, with almost unvaried monotony. All must have their 
exercise ; which in that country commonly imports nothing 
more than that they are to sit or recline for an hour or two 
in some species of vehicle, drawn in the open air. The time 
even for this peculiarly tropical exercise is very limited. 
From a city like Calcutta, it is scarcely possible within the 
very limited period of morning and evening twilight, to 
reach the Champaigne country. Consequently, " the Course, 1 ' 
or largest space open towards the river, is, morning and 
evening, the place of constant resort to all who wish to in- 
hale a few breaths of the freest and least tainted air. For 
any considerable number, in such a state of things, to be- 
come in the least degree acquainted with the physical capa- 
bilities of the country, or the moral condition of its inhabit- 
ants, is plainly impossible. Of the native city and population of 
Calcutta itself and its immediate neighbourhood, little is gene- 
rally known by the great majority of the British residents ! — 
And yet some of these — themselves almost ignorant — presum- 
ing on the simple fact of their Oriental residence, and on the 



499 



credulity of their altogether ignorant hearers, have at times 
ventured after their return, to call in question or flatly to 
contradict the veracious statements of those who have given 
days and weeks and months and years, to the task of per- 
sonal investigation ! 

Still, from the nature and amount of those difficulties which 
impede the progress of inquiry in that hostile clime, it is 
perhaps not possible for any individual enterprise to supply 
the necessary information. The resources of Government 
alone seem commensurate to the undertaking. And a mas- 
ter-mind,— possessed of all the advantages of penetration and 
experience, the philosophy of facts and the philosophy of 
principle, and the varied facilities which a vigorous ad- 
ministration could afford, with hundreds of subordinate 
inquirers scattered throughout the provinces,— would pro- 
bably find the task of directing the different agencies, discri- 
minating, digesting, and arranging the mass of collected 
materials, no sinecure employment. It is much to be de- 
sired that the real glory of the achievement should stimu- 
late some highly-gifted and qualified individual to the at- 
tempt ; — and its utility, when accomplished, would more than 
compensate an enlightened Government. Be this as it may, 
it is the fact, that no first-rate statist has yet arisen in the 
Eastern World— that of Calcutta itself, the metropolis of 
British India, and its circumjacent territory, there is no pro- 
per statistical account; far less,— with one or two circumscrib- 
ed or almost local exceptions,— of the various dependent pro- 
vinces. Now this contractedness of individual observation, 
combined with differences of sentiment, not only disappoints 
but embarrasses the new inquirer by the strangely contradic- 
tory statements he receives, relative to the past progress and 
present state of things— relative to what Christian benevo- 
lence has done, is doing, or should do, together with the 
most approved means of attempting the accomplishment 
of it. If one be content to glide along the surface, he 
may remain ignorant of the jarring elements that move in 
contrary currents, or only slumber in readiness for collision, 
underneath. But let him wish to dive to the bottom of the 



500 

troubled ocean, and he may be truly thankful if he is ever 
privileged to reach it at all— or, having succeeded in his ar- 
duous attempt, ever privileged to retrace his pathway to the 
upper atmosphere of undisturbed calm. 

Since, however, it was resolved to make the attempt, the 
acquaintance of all from whom any useful information could 
be gleaned, was sedulously cultivated. With this view fre- 
quent interviews were obtained with many of the principal 
office-bearers of literary, benevolent, and religious societies. 
Various notices were also received from some of the Hon- 
ourable East India Company s civil and military servants ; 
who had not only been long in India, but, in the course of 
public duty, had been stationed successively throughout 
many of its widely scattered provinces. At the same time, 
the habit was acquired, of constantly accompanying one 
or other of our esteemed fellow-labourers — Episcopalian, 
Independent, Baptist, or Wesleyan— to their respective sta- 
tions ; when preaching under the shade of a tree by the way- 
side ; or in a Bangalau chapel in some leading thoroughfare ; 
or, very early in the morning and late at even, without any 
shelter at all, in the neighbourhood of a bazaar or market- 
place ; — or when distributing tracts and Bibles ; or, last of j 
all, when inspecting and catechising the children in the 
elementary Bengali schools. In these and other ways, be- 
sides witnessing all the existing missionary operations, we 
had ample opportunities of speedily seeing much, hearing 
much, and learning much of the opinions, habits and prac- 
tices of the lower classes of the natives ; partly from perso- 
nal observation, and partly from the frank and full commu- 
nications of our more experienced brethren. From the very 
first, too, it was our studied endeavour to court the society 
of those natives belonging to the more wealthy, influential, 
and learned classes, who had already received a liberal edu- 
cation. Nor was the endeavour made in vain. Indeed, the 
favour, good opinion, and friendly feelings of many were soon j 
turned towards us in a way so very unexpected and unusual, 
that we could find no adequate solution of the fact, save in 
the vivid recognition of a special superintending Providence. 



501 



With a few, an intercourse was commenced almost imme- 
diately on our arrival ; which continued, not only with un- 
abated, but with increasing interest, till the day of our 
departure from India. Partly through the medium of 
English, and partly through the medium of Bengali 
when subsequently acquired ; — sometimes in our own dwell- 
ing, and sometimes in the open verandah or on the flat 
roof of a native residence, with the brilliant expanse of 
heaven for our canopy ; — we have held oft-repeated and long 
continued converse with Merchants, and Zemindars, and 
Rajahs, and Brahmans. And in this way, not only did we 
succeed, at a very early period of our sojourn amongst them, 
in obtaining a tolerable insight into their habitudes, men- 
tal and moral, — as well as their opinions on almost all sub- 
jects, social and traditional, literary and religious, — but 
also, from time to time, in communicating to many the very 
substance of the Gospel message, in the only way in which 
that can at present be usually attempted in the case of the 
higher classes, — namely, in the way of friendly conversation 
and discussion. 

The materials furnished by these multitudinous visitings, 
inquiries, and observations, might occupy a volume ; abound- 
ing, undoubtedly, with much of the dry, the minutely cir- 
cumstantial, and the common-place — uninteresting to the 
general reader, and unfit to meet the public eye ; — but fertile 
at the same time, in weighty experimental lessons, to guide 
the practical judgment, in the formation and future prose- 
cution of those plans which aim at the permanent ameliora- 
tion of native society. 

Our present object is chiefly with the bearing of these in- 
quiries on the solution of the two questions relative to the 
sitf of the proposed Institution, and the specific mode of pro- 
cedure. 

f As to the first of these, it may be proper to advert to the 
terms of the Home Committee's decision. In the Report for 
1 829, it is expressly stated, that " the site of the proposed 



502 



Institution should be in the Province of Bengal ; and, though 
not in the city of Calcutta, within such a distance of it as 
might admit of the Institution being occasionally visited by 
some of our countrymen, servants of the Company, who were 
residents in that city and its neighbourhood." With such 
a decision formally adopted and recorded, the subject was 
calculated to demand inquiry and challenge the most rigid 
investigation. Such inquiry and investigation were, accord- 
ingly attempted to be pursued. And, after the attention 
was successively directed to different districts around Cal- 
cutta, and the requisite information obtained, — the conclu- 
sion, grounded on evidence the most satisfactory, was, that no 
place entirely coincident v:ith the idea expressed in the Assem- 
bly s Report-, at that time existed. Either the population 
was found to be too scattered for concentrated effort ; or not 
of a description to admit of being readily stimulated to the pur- 
suit of higher branches of study, imthout the protracted pre- 
paratory Ulour of years ; or no premises for residence and 
class-rooms could be had, without building at a considerable 
expense, and after all incurring the hazard of a doubtful ex- 
periment ; or, lastly, all the most eligible situations were 
found to be at least partially preoccupied by the Mission- 
aries of other denominations. The only district least liable 
to any of these objections, and in other respects most 
promising, was discovered to be that of Kishnaghur and 
Santipore, in the north of Bengal. But— apart from other 
and most weighty reasons— when it was considered that it 
was about a hundred miles distant from Calcutta,— a dis- 
tance, which in that climate rendered it, in point of free in- 
tercourse and ready communication, nearly as remote and 
inaccessible to the British residents in the metropolis, as 
John O'Groatfs House is to the inhabitants of Edinburgh, 
—we could not satisfy ourselves that the immediate selec- 
tion of it would accord either with the letter or spirit of the 
Assembly's Resolution— and could not, consequently, in the 
absence of farther instructions from home, incur the respon- 
sibility of making it the scene of a first experiment. 

Beside?, all inquiries tended to confirm the conclusion 



503 



that Calcutta itself supplied by far the most promising field 
for the centre of future operations. Every part of India 
presents to the missionary initial difficulties of a most for- 
midable nature. When, therefore, preference is given to 
one, in comparison with another, the preference must be 
founded not on exclusive but relative advantages. Thus, 
to a city like Calcutta, numbers are very naturally at- 
tracted from all parts of Eastern India, in consequence of 
the multiplicity of employments arising from its being the 
seat of Supreme Government, and the grand emporium of 
Oriental commerce. Hence the origin of such evils as these, 
viz., that the incessant fluctuations of a migratory popula- 
tion must, in many instances, prove vastly injurious to regu- 
larity of attendance and persevering continuance of study ; — 
that, in addition to the practices and effects of a debasing 
mythological idolatry, we must have to contend with the 
numberless vicious habits superinduced by the Mammon- 
idolizing spirit of a money-making and fortune-seeking peo- 
ple ; — and that from the facilities of intercourse, and the 
free and ready circulation of sentiment, the spread of noxious 
principles is accelerated, and the power of combined resist- 
ance enlarged and consolidated. But over against these and 
other analogous evils, we had to set the important consi- 
deration, that Calcutta, as the great seat of Government and 
spring of mercantile speculation, is the centre of the most 
powerful and pervasive influences ; — that the frequent epis- 
tolary correspondence and personal intercommunion main- 
tained between those who are even partially taught during 
a temporary residence in the metropolis, and those narrow- 
minded and prejudiced friends who remain behind in their 
provincial settlements, may gradually predispose the latter 
for subsequent and more direct efforts to enlighten them; and 
so ultimately accelerate the progress of all truth, human and 
divine ; — that, if the facilities of propagating error be aug- 
mented, the facilities of disseminating truth are correspond- 
ingly enlarged, by means of the press, the ready distribution 
of defences and expositions of true religion, and the ease 
experienced in convening assemblies for public discussion or 



504 



public address ; —and, finally, that if the minds of a civic po- 
pulation be, in one sense, less unsophisticated than those of 
a rural population, they are, at the same time, less shackled 
by the moulds of prescriptive usage, and the fetters of inve- 
terate prejudice. 

Without attempting to balance advantages and disadvan- 
tages at all, it might appear to many that the single cir- 
cumstance, of apostolic example being decidedly in favour 
of making cities the great centres of evangelic operation, 
ought to prove altogether decisive of the question of pre- 
ference. But, apart from this most mighty and solemn 
consideration, the searching inquiries into which we were 
led, seemed to furnish certain inferences from undisputed 
and indisputable facts, which could leave no reasonable doubt 
in determining in favour of a city like Calcutta. The state of 
things in Bengal was discovered to be far too backward to 
admit of young men being sent from a distance to strangers 
andforeigners,fortheexpresspurposeof enjoying a liberal edu- 
cation. In many, perhaps even in most parts of it, there had 
not then been excited that prevailing desire to receive a higher 
instruction, which would insure a sufficient supply of pupils. 
And in the interior or provincial cities and districts generally, 
such ignorance and distrust relative to the intentions and 
designs of European philanthropists seemed to pervade the 
great mass, that much preliminary time and attention 
would be required to soften prejudice and conciliate con- 
fidence. Even in the Mahammadan College of Calcutta, 
and the Sanskrit College of Benares, though founded and 
supported by Government, " European superintendence was,"'' 
according to the ofiicial report, "for many years strenuously 
and successfully resisted." 

Hence, to insure the immediate success of any extensive 
Institution of a superior kind, three things required to be es- 
pecially attended to : First, it must be planted in the midst 
of a dense population. Secondly, among that population there 
must either be a prevalent desire to benefit by the advan- 
tages which it offered, or numbers of that class of persons 
who could admit most readily of being stimulated by the 



h05 



prospect of its proposed advantages. Thirdly, a considerable 
proportion must have their minds so divested of hostile pre- 
possessions, as readily to intrust the young to the operation 
of an educational system under exclusive European super- 
intendence. To the absence of one or all of these essential 
prerequisites of early success, may be attributed much of the 
temporary failure of one or two collegiate seminaries pre- 
viously instituted on the banks of the Ganges. Now, of all 
places, not in Bengal alone, but in India, Calcutta was un- 
doubtedly that which could present the most tenable plea 
for the existence of all these indispensable prerequisites, or 
accelerating causes of probable early success. There, the 
population was overwhelming in number ; and though thou- 
sands were migratory, tens of thousands were stationary 
Calcutta itself containing upwards of half a million, and its 
vicinity so densely peopled, that within a circle of twenty 
miles, the number was estimated to exceed two millions— a 
number equal to what is contained in all Scotland.— Of this 
vast promiscuous population, a considerable proportion mani- 
fested an earnest desire for instruction, and particularly in- 
struction in European literature and science— And, lastly, 
--from the miscellaneous labours of pious and devoted Mis- 
sionaries, from the disturbing force exerted by one part of 
the Government Scheme of Education, from the gentle and 
almost insensible process of attrition unceasingly carried on 
around the basis of the entire fabric of native society by the 
multiplied streamlets of influence which flowed from the 
very presence and contact of an enlightened European com- 
munity ;— from these and other concurrent causes, no where 
in all India had there been manifested so general a laxation 
of ancient inveterate prejudices, more especially among the 
upper classes the metropolis being, in this important par- 
ticular, at least ten years a-head of any other city or district 
that could be named. 

For all these reasons, it was decided in our own mind, 
that Calcutta itself, and not any place in the interior, ought 
at once to be fixed on as the permanent site of the proposed 
central Institution ;— and this decision, with a full statement 



506 

of the determining reasons, was duly announced to the Home 
Committee. Eventually, the decision was formally ap- 
proved and ratified,— and the progress of every year has 
since tended to convince all parties, whether at home or 
abroad, that the choice was the best which could have been 
made,— and that the hand of an overruling Providence was 
to be traced in all the steps which led to its adoption. Had 
a station in the interior been chosen, as originally designed 
—designed on grounds, which at the time appeared amply 
satisfactory,— the name of the India Mission would this day, 
in all human probability, have been almost unheard of and 
unknown. The little general interest which it excited in 
and before 1829, would have been dwindling into something 
still less ; till by this time it might have reached the very 
zero of utter extinction. 



The next point to be determined was, the mode of procedure. 

The primary object had been to establish at once a 
central Institution for communicating a higher educa- 
tion—literary, scientific, and theological,— to a more se- 
lect number, who might, in diverse ways, beneficially in- 
fluence the minds of all around them ; and some of whom, 
by the blessing of God and the power of His grace, might 
become qualified, in the capacity of teachers and preachers, 
to act as the instructors of their countrymen, " not only in 
the arts and sciences of the civilized world, but in the things 
which belonged to their everlasting welfare." It is obvious, 
that in order to be qualified to enter such an Institution, a 
considerable amount of preliminary instruction would be in- 
dispensable. Before, therefore, proposing to hire, far less to 
erect buildings containing suitable accommodation for class 
and lecture-rooms, prudence and discretion demanded an an- 
tecedent inquiry to be instituted, as to the probability or 
likelihood of obtaining a reasonable number of pupils who 
had already undergone the preparatory discipline, and had 
acquired the preparatory attainments. 

Now, it certainly did contravene all the anticipations en- 



507 



tertained at home, to find, after collecting every possible in- 
formation on the spot, that, even in Calcutta, the state of 
things, so far as Christian influence extended, was so back- 
ward as not at all to admit of the immediate establishment 
of a higher or collegiate Institution. And why ? For the 
strongest, though not the most gratifying, of all reasons ; — 
either that none who were willing were found qualified, or that 
none who were qualified were found willing to enter it. To every 
Missionary of every denomination, and every European su- 
perintendent, and almost every successful teacher of a native 
school, the question was put repeatedly and in every variety 
of form, Whether they knew of any young men who were 
likely at that time to avail themselves of the opportunities 
of improvement presented by such an Institution as the one 
then proposed ? " — and the reply, uniformly and universally 
was to the effect, " That they were acquainted with none." 

How was this unpropitious state of things to be accounted 
for ? The reason was obvious. Up to that time, the atten- 
tion of the Calcutta Missionaries, so far as concerned edu- 
cation, was almost exclusively directed to elementary Bengali 
schools ; where the highest attainment ever reached by the 
most advanced class was, with scarcely any exception, con- 
fined to a moderate proficiency in reading and writing the 
native language, and a little smattering of arithmetic. From 
such schools, no adequate supply, or rather no supply at all 
could be obtained or even expected, towards the replenishing 
and perpetuating of a higher central Institution. Amongst 
this class of pupils were found some of the willing, but none of 
the qualified. Again, those trained in the Hindu College 
and other seminaries sanctioned, controlled, or in part sup- 
ported by Government, were so thoroughly inoculated with 
the " education without religion "-system, and consequently 
so saturated with ant i- Christian prejudices, that not one of 
them seemed disposed to cross the threshold of an Institu- 
tion on whose outer porch must be inscribed the motto, " He 
who enters here must moralize and religionize, as well as 
geometrize." Amongst this class, therefore, were found 
many of the qualified, but none of the willing. And, hence, 



508 



from these different causes combined, the fondly cherished 
scheme of starting at once with a higher or collegiate Institu- 
tion was, though with inexpressible regret, and solely 
owing to the calamitous necessity of circumstances, wholly 
abandoned. 



What then was to be done I Done ! That alone which 
could be done ! The original scheme was, it is true, wholly 
abandoned,— but not for ever abandoned. It was only for a 
time— seeing that a temporary abandonment amounted to a 
physical necessity. Simultaneous with the abandonment of the 
primary design, was the determination to adopt and prosecute 
another. Since, in consequence of the limited, or the anti- 
Christian system of instruction hitherto pursued, scarcely 
one individual advanced enough, or willing enough, to enter 
a superior Institution, could be found,— what course re- 
mained for adoption I— What alternative could remain, 
except to endeavour to institute means for the regular prepar- 
ation of a sufficient number of young men, who might be at once 
qualified and willing to enter upon a higher course F To insure 
this preparation under multiplying disadvantages, must be 
the work of time. Delay and postponement of the original 
design, not an abandonment, must be the inevitable result. 
Patience, therefore, became a virtue of necessity ;— as a pro- 
per allowance of time must be granted to overtake even the 
labour essential to the insuring of the preparatory qualifi- 
cations. In other words, instead of organizing a higher 
Institution, it was now resolved to open one or more elemen- 
tary schools. 

But, was not this resolution, may some ask, at variance 
with what has been already advanced respecting the com- 
parative inefficiency of elementary schools \ By no means. 
It is one thing to assert that, in the first instance, such 
schools must be instituted ; and quite another to affirm, or 
at least to act, as if these were the only ones that ought ever 
to be instituted. From the first the great object— that of 
giving a higher education to a select number— was never for a 



509 



moment lost sight of ; and for its ultimate accomplishment, it 
was proposed that the strength of our resources should be 
reserved. Besides, it was distinctly foreseen and confidently 
anticipated, that the means about to be expended at the out- 
set on the inferior object, might, in the course of time, be great- 
ly diminished, if not, in some cases, altogether withdrawn. 

Here some zealous persons, not easily reconciled to the 
lowering of dignity supposed to be implied in the descent from 
a collegiate Institution to a mere elementary school, la- 
boured to persuade us to wait and set measures on foot to 
secure at once the erection of a handsome edifice ; which, 
by its outward attractions to the eye of a people so en- 
slaved to sense and captivated by outward appearances, 
might allure some of the qualified recusants ; and stimulate 
others to qualify themselves for entering within the precincts. 
Against this representation it was urged, that from the na- 
ture and origin of the recusancy of the qualified, its re- 
moval by any such means seemed more than problematical. 
As to the other result, it was at once conceded, that great 
and extensive improvement could never be realized, till the 
natives had begun to take a share of the burden upon them- 
selves ;— had ceased to accept of all knowledge merely as a 
free gift, instead of paying its just price ;— had ceased to 
regard such appropriation of wealth as so much squan- 
dered and lost, instead of considering the whole as a fair 
exchange, in which the real gain lay all on their side. But, 
however true all this might be ;— still, it seemed not less 
true, in point of fact, that the natives in general had not 
yet learnt to appreciate sufficiently the value of the more 
precious commodities offered for acceptance or purchase 
in the knowledge-market ;— and not less natural, therefore, 
that they should manifest no desire to submit to sacrifices 
in helping themselves to what they had not yet learnt to 
value. The grand object then must be to confer, where 
it never existed or where it had been extinguished, the 
capacity to? estimating the value of true knowledge ; and the 
desire to obtain it would follow, and the means would be 
forthcoming to give the desire its due gratification. Now 



510 



how such capacity and desire could be communicated by the 
mere exhibition to the outward eye of a material fabric, how- 
ever stately its proportions, or gorgeous its embellishments, 
was what we could not well understand. No : the real thing 
wanted was, by an " aggressive movement" in the first in- 
stance, to obtain unobstructed access to the mind ; and by 
freely imparting, without money and without price, the hither- 
to unknown, and therefore unvalued treasure, to create the 
capacity for estimating, and the desire for possessing it, at 
any sacrifice. In other words, make the natives once fairly 
taste and see how very good and pleasant a thing it is ; and 
then, without the show and parade of mere external attrac- 
tions, there will be a demand and competition for it. 

But apart from all such considerations, the missionary field 
in India had already exhibited the experiment of erecting 
collegiate buildings, before there were scarcely any pupils 
qualified to enter them,— buildings which,— though monu- 
ments of the benevolence of their founders,— presented the 
painful spectacle of a prodigious machinery fabricated at a 
vast expense, with scarcely any raw materials on which to 
work. Had these experiments, then, been wholly useless ? 
By no means. It is not that nothing was done by them ; for a 
certain amount of good was achieved. It is simply that the 
thing done was not at all proportioned to the extensive ma- 
chinery. Even if no direct fruit had accrued, they would 
not have been in vain. To subsequent labourers a failure 
is often as fertile in practical lessons,— though in a very dif- 
ferent way,— as success itself. Do not men expend as much 
on the beacon-blaze that simply warns off from danger, as 
on the Pharos that guides into the peaceful haven I Still no 
one would seriously contemplate the experiments in question, 
without having his prayers quickened, no less for the zeal 
that is truly wise, than for the wisdom that is truly zealous. 

The effect of surveying these experiments, on our own deter- 
mination, was at the time, in a letter to the Home Commit- 
tee, thus summed up :— " From all this it is evident, that if, 
as wise men, we are to prefer the solid to the showy, the 
substantial to the nominal, the humbly useful to the magni- 



511 



ficently unproductive, we cannot hesitate in relinquishing, 
for the present, the idea of founding a Collegiate Institution^ 
—cannot hesitate in directing all our educational energies 
towards establishing and extending those elementary semi- 
naries that must act as the permanent and ever-teeming 
nurseries of an Institution of a higher order. And then, 
like the ocean— which, by a beautiful process of nature, amply 
replenisheth the fountains that overflow into rivulets,— whose 
waters uniting return in copious streams, and re-stock the 
original capacious reservoir,— will the higher Institution, by 
a similar process of reciprocal influence, amply enrich the 
sources that supplied it, and render them ever full and ever 
flowing. This appears to be the order of nature. And those 
alone who are unreasonably impatient, and whose faith would 
seem to keep pace only with the visible fruits of their labours, 
can object to it. But assuredly those who live by faith more 
than by sight — those who can sow, and ever continue to sow 
in tears, in the dim and distant, but certain expectation of 
ultimately reaping in joy,— and those alone, prove that they 
inherit a portion of the spirit which animated and supported 
prophets, and holy men of every age." The resolution was 
accordingly formed to bend the whole strength towards the 
preparation of individuals able and willing to enter a higher 
Institution ; and when we could point to these, the intention 
was to demand the erection of a larger edifice to accommo- 
date them in prosecuting their more advanced studies. To 
employ a very homely illustration ; our design was not, like 
that of the witless colonist, first to erect a huge mill, at a 
vast expense, in an uncultivated waste, and, having done so, 
look around in vain for any corn to grind. Our design was 
to cultivate the ground first, and, having secured the prospect 
of an abundant crop, then erect the mill to convert the grain 
into materials for the " staff of life." 

The attention having now been turned exclusively, in the 
first instance, to elementary schools, the question was, of what 
description these should be, and on what footing established I 



512 



Bengali being the vernacular dialect of the province, the 
first idea naturally was to institute a series of Bengali 
schools ; and, with the view of accomplishing this end, we 
repeatedly traversed, sometimes alone, sometimes in the com- 
pany of a European or native, almost every street and lane 
of Calcutta, Here certain facts, already partially observed, 
came out with peculiar vividness. In the Bengali schools 
established by Missionaries, there was such a rapid succes- 
sion of pupils, that little or no substantial knowledge of any 
kind could possibly be conveyed— the greater part remain- 
ing only a few months ; several a twelvemonth ; the merest 
fraction a year and a-half ; scarcely any, more than two years. 
As the general rule, all left school the instant they could read, 
write, and cipher a little. This was a practice so invariable 
in its occurrence, so obstructive of all real progress in its 
effects, that it furnished the theme of universal lamentation, 
—tending to cramp the energies and damp the zeal of 
manv an ardent and devoted labourer. It became, then, an 
important inquiry to ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, 
and see whether or not it admitted of a remedy. If so, good 
and well. If otherwise, it was plain that such schools could 
never be the proximate nurseries of a higher Institution. 
Some of these causes were, on inquiry, found to be the follow- 
ing. The learned Brahmans taught their own sons, and those 
of their Brahman neighbours, Bengali and Sanskrit; and 
natives of rank and wealth had their male children initiated 
by Brahman tutors into the elements of common Bengali m 
their own houses. None of either of these classes would be 
induced, on any consideration, to attend a common Bengali 
school, established and superintended by a Christian mission- 
ary. The middle classes of natives usually proceeded m this 
way : __A native of respectable caste, but of moderate income 
would hire, for the merest trifle, a Sirkar,-or illiterate peda- 
gogue, not a Brahman,-as tutor to his own sons ; and in lieu 
of In adequate salary, would allow him to take in a certain 
number of the children of his neighbours to join in a class 
with his own, and exact from each of these a bagatelle of a 
fee. Of this description of indigenous schools, or schools 



513 



originated and supported by natives themselves, it had been 
ascertained by the School Society that there were about 
two hundred in Calcutta. 

In the country, these vernacular schools are very simple. 
In many parts of India, where, for lack of moisture, the hot 
winds prevail and burn up every blade of grass, children are 
taught to write on the sand or powdery dust. In Bengal, 
from superabundant moisture, there is perpetual verdure— 
a surface that has been green since the day of creation. 
There the practice is different. Go into a country village 
bestudded with cocoas, mangoes, tamarinds, and bananas,— 
amongst which the huts are so irregularly scattered, that 
you can scarcely ever see more than one or two at a time — 
and in the centre, or at the outskirts, you may behold the 
village school. The shade of a banyan or some other wide- 
spreading tree, usually forms the overarching roof of all 
that is wanted as a school-room, — the bare earth or green 
sward, all that is wanted in the way of seats or benches. 
There the boys sit cross-legged. Books and slates, pen 
and paper, they have none. A few green leaves plucked 
from a species of the palm-tree, and a calamus or reed, 
picked, it may be, from the wayside as they passed along, 
form the substitute for pen, paper, and books. Armed 
with these implements, and a little black composition for 
ink, they are provided with a complete scholastic apparatus. 
Whatever is written on the leaves, is written at the oral 
dictation of the master ; and in mastering the alphabet, as 
soon as the sound of each letter is enunciated, its figure, 
form, or representation is delineated with the reed,— so that, 
by the time the letters can be recognised and pronounced, 
they can be accurately written too. 

Here it occurred that one of two things might be done,-— 
either to extend patronage and support to a number of these 
indigenous schools, with the view of improving them,— or to 
establish new schools on an independent footing, which might 
serve as models for imitation, and eventually supersede the 
useless ones altogether. The former course had been already 
adopted and pursued to a great extent, and with considerable 



514 

success, by the School Society. But though,— by means of 
vigilant supervision, and the offer of premiums to teachers 
and taught, who on competition might be found the most me- 
ritorious,— a better system of tuition, as well as printed les- 
son-books, were in many cases introduced, it was on the 
principle of perfect non-interference with the subject of reli- 
gion. And from the very nature and constitution of those 
indigenous schools, it was at once apparent that a Mission- 
ary would find it next to impossible to ingraft Christianity 
upon them ; or to impress them with any decided Chris- 
tian tendencies, by introducing either Christian books or 
Christian masters ; or even Christian knowledge by means of 
oral instruction without books. Though, therefore, at the 
time, a very liberal offer to transfer to us the superintendence 
and partial support of a large number of these schools was 
made, it did not appear that, as Christian missionaries, 
we were warranted to undertake the charge of them— en- 
trammelled by fetters and conditions which virtually excluded 
all Christian influence from being brought to bear upon 
them ; and more especially as, even in their best estate, 
they did not seem fitted to become preparatory gymnasia 
for a higher Christian Institution. 

The only remaining course, therefore, seemed to be, to 
establish a few independent Bengali schools, which might be 
at once organized and taught after a decidedly Christian 
model. The question then was, who would attend such 
schools I— and what probable prospect did they hold out 
towards the ultimate accomplishment of our great end? 
From what has been stated, it will appear that none of the 
children of Brahmans, nor of any of the higher and weal- 
thier classes, could be expected to attend ; nor of any of the 
very lowest classes or outcasts. And of the middle classes, 
it was evident that few or none would attend who could afford 
the miserable paltry pittance of a fee in one of their own 
schools. Who then would attend I Only the children of 
very poor natives, along the borders between the inferior 
grades of the middle and the lowest castes. Such was the 
general result obtained after a narrow inspection of the ex- 



515 



isting state of native society. Those usually came to the 
mission-schools who were too poor to pay the veriest trifle in 
their own. They came, therefore, simply and solely to ob- 
tain gratuitously that which they would in preference seek 
for in their own, if they could afford to pay for it. And 
having once obtained all that they sought for ;— -which was 
in general nothing more than the most meagre of acquisi- 
tions, the art of writing the alphabet and figures— the ability 
even to read being what very few cared for ;— off they went 
in quick succession, without ceremony, and without even re- 
turning thanks for the boon conferred, and were heara of no 
more ! 

It thus appeared that in point of fact, all the pupils who 
frequented Bengali mission-schools, were children of indi- 
viduals of a very inferior grade in society,— individuals who 
had been in no perceptible degree affected by those changes 
which were insensibly stealing into the higher circles,— indi- 
viduals over whom caste and its prejudices still held absolute 
and undisputed dominion,— individuals imbued from infancy 
with the notion that it was an indignity to ancestors, an im- 
piety against the gods to change the profession of the caste 
in which they were born, or aspire to any thing beyond the 
humble heritage of their birth,— in a word, individuals who, 
from the very circumstances in which they were placed, had 
no desire whatever, and in whom no arguments, no induce- 
ments could create the desire to seek after, or cultivate any 
of the higher branches of tuition, whether of native or of fo- 
reign growth. Instead, therefore, of being filled with sur- 
prise and regret that none of this description could be pre- 
vailed on to remain long enough in school to derive what we 
would reckon any real benefit ; the wonder ought rather to 
be, that any one at all acquainted with their views and feel- 
ings could expect them to remain. 

And even if the children of the higher classes could be pre- 
vailed on, as they could not, to attend Bengali mission-schools, 
the case would not be much altered for the better. What 
influential motive could be presented to them to prosecute 
the study of Bengali for any length of time \ Not one. Ben- 



516 



gali was not to them the language of their own literature, 
science, or religion that honour was exclusively monopo- 
lized by the Sanskrit. It was not the language of Govern- 
ment, or jurisprudence, or practical law that honour was 
absorbed by the Persian. It was not the language of com- 
mercial and general business that honour belonged to the 
Hindustani. It was a language, therefore— up to the time of 
Carey and his coadjutors,— as rude, as unreduced to method 
or rule, as the most barbarous of the common vernacular 
dialects of Europe during the middle ages. Hence all the 
written knowledge of it ever deemed necessary, was intend- 
ed only for the lowest, meanest, and commonest intercourse 
and transactions of life— social and domestic. If without any 
recognition of orthographical, etymological, or syntactical 
rules, wealthy men could scrawl a note of invitation to a 
feast, or ceremony ;— if the ryot could mark down the num- 
ber of mauns of rice bought or sold ;— if the petty retailer 
could note the receipts of the day in rupees, annas, and 
pice ;_if the sirdar-bearer, or any other head servant, could 
enrol the number of articles intrusted to his charge —and 
so, with others,— this is all that was ever expected of Ben- 
gali. It was never thought to be of any other use. The idea 
of studying it for the sake of acquiring knowledge through 
it as a medium, was an idea which in any right or available 
sense was unknown to the natives. It was an exotic, trans- 
planted from abroad to their mental soil; and probably would 
never have sprung up, had not Carey and his followers re- 
solved, through it, to convey to more than twenty millions, 
the treasures of the Word of Life. 

On a review of all the circumstances of the case, it was pal- 
pable as the light of day, that in the then existing state of 
things, mere elementary Bengali mission-schools would not 
at all answer the purpose of preparing a race of qualified 
pupils for entering the proposed Collegiate Institution. In- 
deed, so strongly was this felt at the time, that it was re- 
solved we should have nothing whatever to do with them — 
that to establish even one, would be only to throw away 
so much time, money, and labour, for little or nought— 



517 



that the prospect of being able to turn them to any really 
profitable account, seemed so distant, protracted, and inde- 
finite (in the absence of some more effective measure,) that 
if nothing better could be done, we must announce the utter 
failure of one leading part of the contemplated design ; and 
patiently wait, and watch the dealings and the openings 
which might arise, in the course of a mysterious overruling 
Providence. 

With the abandonment of the Bengali schools, was the 
educational department of the original plan, therefore, aban- 
doned \ No. The course of the inquiries which led to the 
abandonment of these, tended to open up new facts, new 
prospects, new instrumentalities for its accomplishment. 

As in the different kingdoms of Europe, all national in- 
struction has long been conducted through the medium of 
the spoken national languages,— so had it been originally 
supposed that all national instruction in a great province 
like that of Bengal, should be conducted through the pro- 
vincial tongue of Bengal,— a language spoken by more than 
twenty millions of people. Inquiry had utterly dissipated 
this notion. For the reason already stated, Bengali could 
not possibly supply the medium for all the requisite instruc- 
tion ; — nor, even if it had a sufficiency of adequate terms, 
had it any adequate supply of the necessary apparatus, in 
the form of appropriate books. 

It now appeared that, as regarded the communication of 
a course of knowledge in any of its higher departments to 
a select portion of Hindu youth,, the choice could only lie 
between two— viz., the Sanskrit or learned language of the 
natives ; and the English, the language of their rulers. 

The determination of this choice involved the decision of 
one of the momentous practical questions connected with the 
ultimate evangelization of India; — a question which has ever 
since convulsed nearly the whole world of Orientalists and 
Christian philanthropists. The question was, Which shall 
hereafter be established as the language of learning in India \ 



518 



Which, will prove the most effective instrument of a large, 
liberal,and enlightened education?— the best primary medium 
of conveying the literature, science, and Christian theology 
of Europe to those who by their instruction and example are 
to be the teachers and guides of their countrymen ! The 
wrong determination of so vital a question, at the outset, would 
have greatly retarded and embarrassed every subsequent 
movement. It was not. therefore, without earnest prayer to 
God for counsel and direction, that a decision was attempted. 

It would seem at first view, that there could be no room 
for hesitation. All argument and authority not only pre- 
ponderated in favour of the Sanskrit, but seemed exclusively 
to favour it. The Supreme Government had decided in its 
favour. Their schemes of education were essentially based on 
the assumption that as a matter of course, and without the 
possibility of dispute, it must be the best. All learned Ori- 
entalists, whose opinion had hitherto been despotic and un- 
controllable law, were enthusiastically and exclusively in its 
favour. And what was most silencing of all, the theory and 
practice of some of the oldest and most experienced Mis- 
sionaries in Bengal were decidedly in its favour. Against 
such a formidable array of authority, who could have the 
hardihood to contend I Must not the very muttering of dis- 
sent be ascribed to the mere love of singularity, or be brand- 
ed as a grand impertinence ? Yet it was in the face of the 
highest authorities,— in the face of Government enactments, 
and learned dissertations, and the practices of Christian 
philanthropists, that the resolution was taken after the ma- 
turest consideration, wholly to repudiate the Sanskrit and 
other learned languages of India as the best instruments of a 
superior education, — and openly and fearlessly to proclaim 
the English the most effective medium of Indian illumination, 
—the best and amplest channel for speedily letting in the 
full stream of European knowledge on the minds of those 
who by their status in society, their character and attain- 
ments, their professional occupations as teachers and preach- 
ers, were destined to influence and direct the national intel- 
lect and heart of India. 



519 



Such a project was denounced by the great Orientalists. 
They could tolerate, and as members of the Government 
Committee of Public Instruction, they did practically sanc- 
tion one use and application of the English language, — 
that is, for qualifying a select number of native youth to be- 
come translators of European books into the Sanskrit and 
other learned languages of India, which in their estimation 
were the only effective media for enlightening the national 
mind. But the proposition — altogether to supersede these 
learned languages, by the employment of English as a uni- 
versal substitute, — they stigmatized as the result of some new 
species of mental affection, to be henceforward known under 
the appellation of " Anglomania? 

Into the various reasons for this decision our space forbids 
us to enter; nor is it necessary, as the subject has already 
been so often illustrated.* One practical reason appeared so 
very obvious, that it was matter of wonder why it should 
have been so long overlooked. Suppose Sanskrit were as 
perfect an instrument as the English for conveying Euro- 
pean knowledge, which it is not ; suppose it were as easy 
of acquisition as the English to native youth, which it is 
not ; suppose the attainment of it were as open to all classes 
as the English, which it is not,— seeing that, by an ordinance 
reckoned to be divine, three-fourths of the people, consisting 
of the lowest and mixed classes, are, under pains and penal- 
ties, forbidden the study of it ; — suppose, in short, it possess- 
ed all the advantages which the English does, as a lingual ve- 
hicle, how different, how contrary the results produced on a 
native mind, by the respective acquirements of these two lan- 
guages ! There are scarcely any European works translated 
into the Sanskrit ; and even if there were, every term in that 
sacred tongue is linked inseparably with some idea or senti- 
ment, or deduction of Hinduism, which is a stupendous sys- 

* See pamphlet entitled " New Era of English Language and English 
Literature in India," passim. « Church of Scotland's India Mission," 2d 
edition, p. 30—31. "Vindication of Do.," seventeenth thousand, p. 20, 
21 . p. 4. Also, * Missions the Chief End of the Christian Church," 3d edi- 
tion, p. 77—81. 



520 



tern of error ; — so that a native in acquiring it becomes in- 
doctrinated into a false system ; and, after having mastered 
it, is apt to become tenfold more a child of Pantheism, ido- 
latry, and superstition than before ! Whereas, in the very 
act of acquiring English, the mind, in grasping the import of 
new terms, is perpetually brought in contact with the new 
ideas, the new truths, of which these terms are the symbols 
and representatives ; — so that, by the time that the language 
has been mastered, the student must be tenfold less the child 
of Pantheism, idolatry, and superstition than before. 

Still, though the superiority of the English as an instru- 
ment of enlightened education was demonstrable, the prac- 
tical question recurred, Does there exist among the natives 
the desire, combined with the ability to acquire a competent 
knowledge of it I Or, what probability is there of any num- 
ber being able and willing to avail themselves of the offer 
to convey instruction through it as the chosen medium? 
The subject, it must be confessed, was on all hands wrapped 
up in intricacy and embarrassment; of which, at this distance 
of time and place, it is not possible to convey an adequate 
conception. In a city like Calcutta, the felt supremacy of 
British power and influence in every department, political, 
judicial, and commercial, naturally and necessarily tended to 
create a gradually increasing demand for a certain amount 
of English on the part of the natives ; — such an amount as 
might enable them to act the part of head servants, copyists, 
and petty agents in the varied transactions of social life. 
Availing themselves of this fact, individual Missionaries had 
at times opened elementary classes for instruction in Eng- 
lish. But so soon as the young men had acquired all the 
smattering in the way of writing and broken oral gibberish, 
essential to their humble vocation, they invariably disappear- 
ed, without carrying away with them any solid or valuable 
attainment whatsoever ; — to the mortification and disgust of 
the instructor, and his final abandonment of so useless an 
employ. Accordingly, when it was proposed to establish a 
new English seminary, the strongly expressed opinion of 
some of the best friends of missions was, that the experi- 



521 



llient would prove worse than useless. " In a few months," 
said they, " or atthe utmost, in ayear or two, all the pupils will 
run away ; and considering the chicanery so notoriously pre- 
valent among the menial class of natives, you may only be mul- 
tiplying evil instead of good." To this our reply in substance 
was :— " At a time when scarcely any native knew English, 
the merest smattering must have brought a good price. But 
the demand for such a class of native servants, assistants, 
and intermediate agents, is not unlimited. Already there 
appear to be so many in quest of employment, that the mar- 
ket must be well stocked. By opening the facilities of a new 
Institution, we shall soon have the market overstocked. What 
then % Surely this— that when the number of these smatter- 
ers or elementarists is made to superabound, many amongst 
them will be forced to perceive that their only chance of se- 
curing a preference, will be to acquire attainments superior 
to their fellows— to advance a step higher in the progres- 
sive or ascending series of intellectual acquirements. When 
that higher step has been surmounted by considerable num- 
bers, many will feel the necessity of advancing higher still ; 
and so upwards to the very pinnacle of that proficiency in 
sound knowledge which it is our wish to communicate. And if 
only a few be once made to partake of a free draught at the 
refreshing fount of English knowledge in its higher depart- 
ments, we have no doubt that a craving will thereby be 
created for fresh supplies and that the strongest guarantee 
for the continued attendance of the pupils, will be found in 
the perfect delight which they must experience in the vigorous 
prosecution of their studies ; as well as the growing sense of 
the advantage of so doing, both for time and eternity." With 
such and similar statements were the objections of many re- 
pelled at the time ; the experiment was tried ; and the day 
has arrived when these inferential anticipations have been 
more than verified. 

Other zealous friends of Christianity looking at the 
Government Hindu College and its fruits, could not help 
associating a superior English education with infidelity. 
Giving us credit for the best intentions, they scrupled not, 



522 



in their ignorance or heedlessness, to characterise our in- 
tended scheme as an infidelizhiQ, process, rather than one 
which would promote the evangelization of India. To 
this representation the reply was obvious :— " The Hindu 
College has produced its bitter fruits simply because it 
communicates the knowledge which destroys a false reli- 
gion without supplying that which would build up in the 
true. Instead of scaring us by such an experiment, the 
very existence of a seminary like the Government Hindu Col- 
lege, furnishes one of the most urgent arguments for the 
establishment of a new Institution, — its co-ordinate and rival 
as an intellectual gymnasium, — its unrivalled superior, as 
the nursery of religion and morals. From the circulation 
of European literature and science, but wholly exclusive of 
morality and religion, the young illuminati, too wise to con- 
tinue the dupes and slaves of an irrational and monstrous 
superstition, do, it is admitted, openly enlist themselves in 
the ranks of infidelity. Here, then, is a new power which 
threatens soon to become more formidable than idolatry 
itself. Already it has begun to display some of its ghastly 
features, and boastfully to exhibit its prognostics of antici- 
pated triumph. And in the storm of conflicting opinions 
which seems gathering on all sides, it may easily be fore- 
seen, that unless our vigilance and exertions are increased 
in a tenfold degree, infidelity and not Christianity, will be 
the power that must cause the downfall of idolatry ; and 
with it also, the overthrow of all that we most value. It 
becomes then a question of vital, of paramount importance, 
—How are we most effectually to resist the encroachments 
of this new anti-idolatrous and anti-Christian power I Can 
any plan be devised more likely to arrest its desolating pro- 
gress than the founding of a superior Christian seminary ; 
with the view of raising up another race of young men, who, 
having their minds imbued with the enlightened spirit of 
modern science, and regulated and controlled by the prin- 
ciples of true religion and sound morality, can challenge the 
common enemy on his own terms ; and, aided from on high, 
eventually carry by storm the strongest positions of his lofty 



523 



citadel I And if some expedient appear manifestly necessary 
to meet this neio state of things, and that now suggested 
promises, under the Divine blessing, to prove the most effec- 
tual, ought we to linger in ruinous indecision ?— Or, is it 
wise to delay the adoption of the projected measure, till, by 
our procrastination, we allow the opposing influences to 
grow and swell into a torrent, which may sweep away in its 
impetuous career every bulwark that we can oppose to it ? 
Reason and expediency proclaim, No." 

Hereupon a numerous and influential party of our own coun- 
trymen, « the Indians of the old school," came forward with 
their objections. It was admitted that a desire to acquire the 
English language prevailed to a considerable extent. Besides 
the more mercenary class of natives already referred to, there 
were others who had begun to resort to the English foun- 
tain-head. From the various incipient and slowly develop- 
ed, but long-continued tendencies towards ultimate change, 
more particularly amongst some of the higher classes, there 
began to be manifested a desire on the part of not a few to 
emulate, to a certain extent, and without infringement of 
the laws of caste, English manners and customs,— as well 
as the determination to secure for their children an English 
education. Unhappily, however, this higher class of natives 
was associated with the operations of the Government Col- 
lege, and entirely under the influence of the advocates of 
education without religion. Accordingly, the constant 
speech of all " old Indians" was the following:—" However 
desirous some of the higher classes may be of obtaining an 
English education, to enhance their respectability in the eyes 
of Europeans ; and however readily boys of a lower caste 
may be induced, from ignorance or selfish motives, to peruse 
books of a religious nature ; there is still such a blind and 
inveterate adherence to their own idolatrous system, such 
determined hostility towards Christianity as the great an- 
tagonist of that system, that whenever the proposal may be 
made to read the Christian Scriptures, the school must in- 
stantly and inevitably be vacated by all the pupils of a higher 
caste" To this we had a twofold reply « First, when 



524 



you deny that such young men as are able and willing to 
master the English language, can be induced to read the 
Bible, or receive instructions in the principles of the Chris- 
tian faith, you appeal with triumph to past experience. But 
yours is a triumph without a victory. Under the shelter of 
power and influence and wealth, your exclusive plan has 
been tried ; and it has succeeded :— But what inference can 
be drawn from this success except the obvious one that 
your plan is practicable ! The other experiment, viz., that 
of making Christianity an essential part of a course of supe- 
rior English education, has as yet been unattempied. How 
then can the success of that which has been tried, in cir- 
cumstances the most favourable, disprove the probability of 
attaining success in the case of that which has been left un- 
tried? In the sight of reason alone, independent of expe- 
rience, the proof must be held inconclusive and the triumph 
most unfounded" Our second and principal reply was :— 
" There are already very noticeable symptoms abroad, that 
the Indian Government is well disposed to transfer to English 
much of the patronage which hitherto has almost exclusive- 
ly been lavished on the learned languages of the East. Be- 
sides, in the very nature of things, a larger share in the ad- 
ministration of affairs must ere long be extended to the 
natives than has hitherto been vouchsafed; and an ac- 
quaintance more or less with the language and literature of 
the ruling power, must form an indispensable prerequisite 
qualification for office. Should these two causes concur, as 
concur they must at no distant period, there will be a de- 
mand created for English far beyond what the Government 
College can supply. And from the somewhat relaxed opini- 
ons of numbers of the present generation of respectable na- 
tives in the metropolis, is it not probable, is it not all but 
certain, that if we furnish a superior English education, hun- 
dreds will gladly avail themselves of the advantages offered 
and risk the consequences of a simultaneous instruction in 
the evidences and doctrines of the Christian Faith ? At all 
events the stake is so great— the crisis so imminent— the 
conjuncture so favourable— that the experiment is worth 



trying, even if it should prove a dead failure ;— and tried it 
shall be. 1 ' 



The resolution having now been formed, that elementary 
English schools were best adapted to the ultimate end con- 
templated, no time was lost in attempting to give practical 
effect to it. A tolerably sized hall in an old building in the 
central part of the native town— once occupied as a Hindu 
College, and latterly as a chapel by " Hindu Unitarians" or 
Pantheists, was hired for the purpose. All the necessary 
preparations in fitting it for educational purposes having 
been completed by Monday the 12th July, a note was for- 
warded on the evening of that day to a native of rank and 
influence, who had expressed himself favourable to our de- 
sign ;— stating, that on the following morningwe should attend 
at the intended school. On Tuesday, at his recommendation, 
five young men made their appearance. With these chiefly,' 
through an interpreter, we had a long and pleasing colloquy' 
They went away expressing themselves highly gratified. 
The tidings they communicated to their friends and neigh- 
bours. On Wednesday twenty more appeared. The most 
of these, too, retired with the most favourable impressions. 
On Thursday, the number of additional candidates amounted 
to eighty. So that, without public notice or advertisement 
of any description, the hall, which only held about one hun- 
dred and twenty, was completely filled in three clays. 

On Friday, it was our intention to examine, arrange, and 
classify, but were prevented from so doing by the appearance 
of upwards of two hundred new applicants. These assembled 
in the back court ; and in their petitions were so clamor- 
ous and importunate, that after struggling in vain to ex- 
plain and pacify, we found it utterly impossible to proceed. 
Judging from the exceeding earnestness of the entreaties, 
that instead of having to solicit the attendance of any as a 
favour, hundreds must be refused for want of sufficient ac- 
commodation,— it was announced that a selection would be 
made ; and, that in order to secure the greater decorum 



526 



and regularity, every application must be made in writing ; 
and accompanied, if possible, by a special recommendation 
from some respectable native or European gentleman. 

It was with the utmost difficulty we got clear of the crowd. 
They would extort promises which could not possibly be 
made ; because the means of fulfilment was not at hand. 
Numbers, afraid lest they might be among the unsuccessful 
candidates, rushed after us from the hall and court. On 
the street, encompassing us about, they formed a voluntary 
retinue. Expostulation on our part was vain. Their en- 
treaties were vehemently reiterated. To every exhortation, 
patiently to await the approaching selection, they turned 
a deaf ear. To the last, many held on ; and even lingered 
for hours in front of our dwelling-house. 

During the next week, four or five hours each day were 
spent in receiving applications and examining candidates. 
As interesting proofs of the earnest desire of parents and 
guardians to obtain an English education for their children 
and friends, a number of their written applications, bear- 
ing as they did the credentials of their own authenticity, 
were sent home to the Assembly's Committee. 

Finding, toward the end of the week, that new candidates 
were still pressing forwards, in numbers scarcely diminish- 
ing,—^ was found necessary to close the lists for the pre- 
sent, and proceed to make the proposed selection. To those 
whose names were not enrolled, or might be rejected, less 
could not be said than that there was an earnest desire to 
receive all ; and to secure, as soon as possible, additional 
accommodation. In the meanwhile, as a temporary arrange- 
ment, and in order to make the best of the means at our 
disposal, it was resolved— though attended with greater 
fatigue to the teachers,— by a particular alternation of the 
junior and senior classes at different hours of the day, to 
convey suitable instruction to double the number which the 
hall could at once accommodate. 

Throughout the whole progress of these preparatory 
arrangements, the excitement among the natives continued 
unabated. They pursued us along the streets. They threw 



527 



open the very doors of our palankeen ; and poured in their 
supplications with a pitiful earnestness of countenance that 
might have softened a heart of stone. In the most plain- 
tive and pathetic strains, they deplored their ignorance. 
They craved for " English reading,"—" English knowledge." 
They constantly appealed to the compassion of an " Ingraji * 
or Englishman ;— addressing us in the style of Oriental 
hyperbole, as " the great and fathomless ocean of all ima- 
ginable excellencies," for having come so far to teach poor 
ignorant Bengalis. And then, in broken English, some 
would say, " Me good boy, oh take me others, " Me poor 
boy, oh take me :"— some, " Me want read your good books, 
oh take me others, " Me know your commandments,' 
Thou shall have no other gods before me, oh take me 
and many, by way of final appeal, " oh take me, and I pray 
for you." And, even after the final choice was made, such 
was the continued press of new candidates, that it was 
found absolutely necessary to issue small written tickets 
for those who had succeeded ; and to station two men at the 
outer door to admit only those who were of the selected 
number. 

From all this it might naturally have been concluded, 
that the actual thirst for English instruction was incredibly 
greater than the most sanguine could at all have antici- 
pated. But there were certain abatements and subtrac- 
tions, which the past experience of others suggested ought to 
be made from the plenitude of this conclusion. Hitherto, 
in native schools, looks, as well as instruction had been 
gratuitously supplied,— in order to allure the careless and 
ignorant to desire their own improvement. What was the 
consequence ?— 1st, The sinful practice of flocking in num- 
bers to any newly opened school, for the sole and exclusive 
purpose of obtaining books ; and when these were once ob- 
tained, of running away with the prize and, 2d, The 
vicious practice of perpetually shifting from one school to 
another, from a spirit of restless, aimless curiosity, and 
vague unmeaning novelty. Hence, the excessive pressure 
for admission might, after all, have only indicated an un- 



528 



wonted outburst of the spirit of avarice, proportioned to the 
greater extent of anticipated liberality in the distribution of 
books ;— which, instead of being converted into stores for 
the intellect, might be turned into so much waste paper for 
petty retailers in the bazaar. And the school might have 
been filled in part only with drainings from other seminaries, 
— which would drop away, as curiosity was gratified, and 
the feeling of novelty wore off. 

A state of things so unpropitious to the cause of edu- 
cation, and the best interests of the natives themselves, it 
was desirable to rectify without delay. Accordingly, with 
the view, if possible, of applying an early remedy to these 
great and acknowledged evils, it was resolved that, besides 
the other precautionary measures already referred to, the 
very principle of selection must be regulated by two in- 
dispensable conditions -.—first, that all those chosen should 
instantly pay for the class-books to be employed ;— and, se- 
condly, that the parents and guardians should formally sign, 
in the presence of witnesses, a written agreement binding 
themselves, under certain pecuniary penalties, to the ob- 
servance of various regulations respecting the hours of daily 
attendance, and a prolonged period of attendance ; which 
tended to arrest, if not annihilate, the wandering propen- 
sities. 

Nearly the whole of the ensuing week, or last week of J uly, 
was occupied in expounding the nature and reasonableness 
of those conditions ;— and in meeting such of the parents 
and guardians as came forward deliberately to attach their 
own signatures to the agreement, The great end contem- 
plated was effectually secured. Many of the idle, the wan- 
dering, the frivolous, the ill-intentioned, at once disappear- 
ed. And the lists were eventually filled up with the names 
of two hundred and fifty for whom the books were purchased 
and the agreement duly signed ;— that being the utmost pos- 
sible number which could be admitted. Subsequently it was 
found, as had been anticipated, that no agreement was ne- 
cessary to insure regular and continued attendance ;— the 
pleasure and profit of the studies pursued having been suffi- 



529 



cient to induce many of the young men to insist the lure of 
offers of immediate employment, and to remain at school in 
opposition to the persuasion of some, and in spite of the 
threats and persecution of others. 

On Monday, the 2d of August,-the selection of the pupils 
being now completed, and all being regularly distributed into 
classes, irrespectively of age or caste, according to their ascer- 
tained attainments or non-attainments,— the business of ac- 
tual tuition for the first time commenced. The highest class, 
about forty, consisted of those who had advanced so far as 
to be able to spell and read with tolerable ease words of 
two syllables— without, however, understanding, except in 
a very few instances, a single word. The second class 
consisted of those who could spell and read words of one 
syllable. The third, of those who had simply mastered 
the alphabet. All the rest had to commence with A, B, 0. 
Scarcely one of them had ever been in a school of any 
description. What insignificant attainments the more ad- 
vanced parties possessed, had been acquired incidentally 
from the private or home instructions of acquaintance or 
friends. Several phrases current in colloquial intercourse 
had in like manner been picked up by rote. Beyond this, 
there was neither possession nor pretension on the part of 
any one. 

Our educational bark was now fairly afloat on a sea of 
ignorance ;— but, with the cloudy horizon partially opening 
before, and a fresh gale of hope in the direction of the fair 
havens, the fear of prospective perils was overborne by the 
joyous prospect of triumph on reaching the happy land of 
promise. Had any one ventured to predict only a month 
before, that we should start under such favourable auspices, 
he would have been treated as an unreflecting sleeper, and 
his prediction as the vision of a dream. 

In the conclusion of a long communication forwarded at 
the time to the Home Committee,— of which the preceding 
narrative exhibits the substance,— are found the following re- 
marks :— " In what has been advanced, I have been studious 
to avoid what the world calls ' effect; I have endeavoured to 

Ll 



530 



present you with a plain statement of facts. And if in any 
respect it is faulty, it is on the ground of deficiency in the 
detail, and of dimness in the colouring. I have presented 
simple facts. And oh, if some of them are not facts that are 
calculated to tell more emphatically on the minds of the 
people of Scotland than all mere abstract reasoning, how- 
ever convincing, and all mere eloquence, however overpower- 
ing to the heart and feelings, we must be constrained to 
believe that ours is an age in which men prefer speculation 
to action— the brilliant colouring of the fancy to the unvar- 
nished simplicity of resistless .realities— the glowing crea- 
tions of an inoperative philanthropy, to the actual fruits of 
a productive benevolence. I must confess that, when I re- 
called to mind the days of other years— those days of clouds 
without a ray of promise— when the heralds of the Cross 
toiled and perished ere they could persuade one native 
to receive wholesome instruction at their hands, and the pre- 
judices of the people were pronounced unchangeable, by the 
voice of ages,— and when I contrasted all this with the present 
dawning of a glorious light, and the singular necessity under 
which I was laid of turning a deaf ear to the earnest en- 
treaties of hundreds craving for instruction,— I must confess 
that my heart was often ready to burst for want of utter- 
ance. To God, who is ever rich and overflowing in mercy 
and in love, be all the praise and all the glory ! " 

From the brief statement now given, it will appear that 
the modified form of practically carrying out the educational 
part of the Assembly's Scheme was in actual operation for 
two months before the Home Committee could receive any 
intelligence of the arrival of their first Missionary at the 
scene of his destination. Of all his movements, plans, and 
resolutions, due information was regularly forwarded to Dr 
Inglis, the Convener of the Committee. Here we can- 
not but pause to offer our humble tribute of grateful homage 
to the spirit of noble impartiality, considerate candour, and 
paternal indulgence, with which that great and good man 
received every communication from the missionary field ; and 
in which he conducted the whole of the correspondence there- 



531 



with— a spirit which those who best know the inner work- 
ings of the enterprise, will be the readiest to testify, has been 
largely inherited, and during the last five years often beau- 
tifully exemplified, by his respected and beloved friend and 
successor— the present Convener— Dr Brunton. Before this 
pure, elevated, and disinterested spirit, no preconceived idea 
or opinion has ever been allowed to stand its ground, when 
any thing different has been pointed out by the Missionary 
on the field of labour, as more likely, through the Divine 
blessing, to secure the success of the heavenly undertaking. 
Of the Home Committee as a body, justice and gratitude 
alike demand of us to record, that never were men less dis- 
posed to exercise mere power, however constitutional. The 
bond between the Home Directors and the foreign agents, 
has never been that of mere official authority on the one 
hand, and mere official submission on the other. No ;— the 
bond ail along has consisted in a fatherly interest and con- 
fidence at home, which have been amply reciprocated by a 
filial respect and confidence abroad. Long may this blessed 
bond which rests on faith, is cemented by love, and sealed 
by prayer, continue to exhibit its happy fruits in mutual 
harmony of design, and conspiring movement of parts, in 
dependence on the aid of Almighty grace, towards the re- 
alization of the anticipated triumphs ! 



The few first days had still to be devoted chiefly to the 
task of marshalling the different classes and assistant teach- 
ers ; and of reducing the whole to order, discipline, and 
prompt obedience to the will of the controlling authority. 
And never, certainly, were such military exercises more 
needed. Not one present seemed to have the remotest no- 
tion of rule, plan, or system ;_no more, than so many un- 
tamed creatures newly caught in the caves of the rock, or the 
jungles of the forest ; and suddenly transported to the 
abodes of civilization. Each seemed to think that he 
ought to be allowed to sit, or stand, or speak, or read, or 
move, or come and go, just when, and where, and how he 



532 



pleased. No assistance whatever was derived from the 
assistant teachers. These required to be disciplined as 
much as the most undisciplined of the pupils. And as to 
any improved method of instruction, they required a sepa- 
rate training as much as the pupils whom they were called 
on to instruct. Decision, moved by kindness, and regulated 
by method, soon tended to reduce this apparently intractable 
mass of unrestrained self-willedness into cheerful captivity, 
under the yoke of an exactly-defined regime and plastic de- 
ference to recognised authority. 

The plan or mode of tuition adopted was what has been 
termed " the intellectual system which has been brought 
to such perfection by those distinguished educational philan- 
thropists, Mr Wood of Edinburgh, and Mr Stow of Glas- 
gow subject, of course, to such peculiar modifications in 
the arrangements and details, as the change of circumstances 
obviously demanded. This is the natural and true system ; 
suited to the condition and capacity of rational beings. It 
was beyond all debate the strenuous and unabated prosecu- 
tion of this Indianized modification of the intellectual or 
mental developement system of instruction, which, under the 
direction of Divine Providence, so speedily caused the infant 
Institution to outpeer all its predecessors in the estimation 
both of natives and of Europeans,— which soon assigned to it, 
as an elementary school, somewhat the same rank among the 
seminaries of Calcutta, as has so long and deservedly been 
awarded to the Sessional School among the Edinburgh Insti- 
tutions,— which gradually converted it into a Normal School 
for teachers of nearly as great prominence in Eastern India, 
as the Normal School of Glasgow among our Scottish estab- 
lishments,— and which finally is raising it into the status of 
a mission-college with its Divinity Hall for the equipment 
of preachers of the everlasting Gospel. 

At first, even the most advanced of the boys and young 
men appeared to possess little or no characteristic intel- 
ligence. If, on distinctly pronouncing such a simple sen- 
tence as this—" The sun shines;'— it was asked, What is 
it that shines I the question would be answered by a vacant 



533 



unintelligent stare. They had read something, but, to 
attend to the import of what they read, or exercise the 
least degree of thought upon it, was a practice to them 
wholly unknown. Still, there was nothing to discourage. 
Having ourselves experienced all the horrors of the dull old 
mechanical system during the earlier years spent in school, 
and being able even now to realize the impress of that un- 
bounded joy which filled the soul, when first emancipated 
from its thraldom, and made to feel conscious of the posses- 
sion of at least some small portion of reason, we readily per- 
suaded ourselves that, under a system of tuition still more 
imperfect, it was almost impossible for the youth assembled 
before us to make a different exhibition. Instead, there- 
fore, of upbraiding them for their apparent stupidity, we were 
naturally led to cheer and encourage,— warmly expressing 
our conviction that the fault was not theirs if they appear- 
ed to such disadvantage,— cheerfully ascribing their present 
state to causes over which they had no control, — and strongly 
assuring them that, by persevering diligence, their progress 
might not only be sure, but rapid. Sooner than could well 
be anticipated were our expectations realized. Scarcely 
had a week elapsed, when the state of things assumed a 
decided change of aspect. Forwardness of manner became 
respectful : irregularity of habit acknowledged some rule : 
sluggishness of movement was quickened : the unfixed ten- 
dency of thought seemed more stayed : fickleness and levity 
of conduct settled down into greater sobriety : aimlessness 
of effort began to be directed to a purpose ; and passive 
indolence of mind was roused into activity. It was now 
found that there might be mental as well as bodily exercise 
—an intellectual as well as a physical appetite— a regale- 
ment of reason as well as of sense. It was found that in- 
genuity and fancy might be displayed in framing intelligent 
replies and felicitous illustrations, as much as in the skilful 
contrivance and dexterous execution of material mechan- 
isms. And what was the result ? A new and enlivening 
joy,— fresh as the sparkling dewdrops that begem the bosom 
of nature at the opening dawn of a summer morn, — beamed 



534 



from many a youthful countenance on the discovery of a 
power which all had previously possessed, without having 
hitherto been made conscious of the possession. 

This was the time for the formal introduction of that 
prime branch of knowledge, without which all education 
is more than defective. The hostile prognostications of the 
" Old Indians" were now about to be put to the test of ex- 
periment. For what experiment could be more decisive 
than that about to be made on an assemblage of upwards of 
a hundred natives, assembled at one time,— one-third of 
whom were about the age of twenty, — one-fourth of whom 
were Brahmans,— the greater part of the remainder of re- 
spectable caste,— and not one that we knew of the very 
lowest ? 

It was at once freely confessed that the subject was not 
without its difficulties. But, to the shame of our country- 
men, it must be told that these difficulties, though not per- 
haps originated, had been increased a hundredfold by the 
base and treacherous proceedings of Britons bearing the 
Christian name. In their total ignorance of the reality, a very 
general impression had at an early period gone abroad among 
the great mass of bigoted natives, that the Bible was the 
most infamous of all books— that it was expressly written by 
theMeleMas^the " polluted and unclean," (the " Feringees," 
or " European Infidels; 1 ) for the express purpose of abusing 
and vilifying the pure and holy religion of Brahma. And 
this most untoward impression, if not originally suggested, 
had been at least rivetted and confirmed by the policy and 
example of their Christian governors, in the course of a cen- 
tury of absolute dominion ; — a policy and example quite the 
reverse of that pursued by preceding governments. Every 
official transaction the Mahammadan rulers of India were 
wont to preface with the grand formula, " There is but one 
God, and Mahammad is his prophet;' On every occasion, 
public or private, they loudly and fearlessly appealed to the 
Koran as the model of taste and the miracle of learning,— 
the standard of literature and the well-spring of philosophy, 
—the ultimate authority in law and the sole depository of 



535 



true religion. What was the result \ Cordially as the great 
mass of Hindus hated the Mussulman and his Koran,— policy, 
interest, curiosity, impelled hundreds to the study of Arabic 
and Koranic lore. Without the resistless argument of the 
sword, hundreds were persuaded in their minds to become pro- 
selytes of the Islamic faith. How different the conduct of 
their Christian governors ! Instead of prefacing their official 
proclamations with the grand article of Christian doctrine, 
" There is one God, and one Mediator between Cod and 
man, the man Christ Jesus instead of fearlessly appealing 
to the Bible as the fountainhead of all sound principle in 
legislation, jurisprudence, and religion,— their grand scheme 
of policy was, by every possible artifice, treacherously to con- 
ceal their faith ; and by threats of pains and penalties, wholly 
to keep back from view and to suppress the great standard 
of that faith. What was the result ?— A national indoctrin- 
ation of the native mind into the conviction that the Bible 
was so hateful a book, that even its professed adherents 
were ashamed of it in the presence of strangers ! Instead 
of hundreds being led and encouraged, as in the case of the 
Koran, by interest or curiosity, to examine into its claims 
or contents and ultimately become acquainted with it, the 
conduct of their Christian governors tended to extinguish the 
first stirrings of curiosity,— -tended to crush the first risings 
of inquiry by annihilating the very possibility of attaining 
honour, or station, or rank, or wealth, or consideration, or 
power, through any avenue that visibly bordered on the faith 
of Jesus— tended to concentrate all previous hostile prejudices 
and senseless prepossessions in one grand focus of national 
antipathy against the very name of Christ— and thus virtually 
cause their chiefest political good— their supreme worldly in- 
terest—to consist in hating that blessed name, which is the 
only name given under heaven whereby men can be saved ; 
and in scornfully branding as the very " abomination of deso- 
lation" that most precious of all books, which alone can 
prove the light and the life of a benighted and famishing 
world ! The same crooked and traitorous policy extended to 
every department. From the educational system pursued 



536 



in every Government seminary, and every Institution pa- 
tronized by Government officials (apart from the elementary 
mission- schools), the Bible was systematically excluded by 
rules as rigorous and inviolable as those that regulate the 
maintenance of a strict quarantine in warding off the pes- 
tilence or the plague. Hence it happened that the odium,— 
originally excited towards the Bible as some unknown evil of 
portentous magnitude,— instead of being diminished, was un- 
reasonably enhanced. Every prejudice was doubly fenced ; 
every ignorant surmise set on keener edge ; every feeling of 
aversion exacerbated into the very extreme of sensitive 
acuteness. Indeed, such images of loathing and terror were 
often conjured up, and associated with the best of books, 
that it would seem as if,— in order to thicken the shades 
of an ignorance already dark and confused as chaos,— the 
powers of darkness had been permitted to encompass and 
bewilder the minds of the deluded people with the phantas- 
magoria of some Pandemonian enchantment. 

In such a peculiar and unnatural state of things, — from 
the proverbial extent of native prejudice ; and, to the great 
majority of those present, the startling novelty of the in- 
tended proposal, — from the confident vaticinations of failure 
on the part of so many veteran British residents, and the ac- 
knowledged inexperience of him who undertook to conduct 
the experiment, — it was deemed advisable to proceed with 
a degree of cautiousness which, in a maturer state of things, 
might indicate something akin to pusillanimity,— a degree 
of circumspection, all the reasons for which even subsequent 
labourers on the spot can never adequately appreciate. 

As it was, some zealous friends magnanimously advised us 
to disregard all scrupulous cautiousness as savouring too 
much of mere worldly prudence. The style of address which, 
on the first day of our meeting, it might have suited their own 
views and practice that we should employ, was somewhat as fol- 
lows: "Young men of Calcutta, allow us at the outset briefly 

to unfold our main object in coming hither to instruct you. 
All your own learning we consider as teeming with error ; all 
your religion as false ; all your gods as monsters of wicked- 



537 



ness. We have come hither, therefore, to ' overturn, over- 
turn, overturn/ the whole. We have come to lead you to 
abandon all your foolish prejudices ; all your blinding su- 
perstitions ; all your damnable idolatries. Now, the grand 
instrument for effecting this destruction of all which, under 
the spirit of so strong a delusion, you have been led to' value ; 
—the grand substitute,— unfolding the knowledge of that re- 
velation which alone points out the true way of attaining 
present and everlasting happiness,— is the Bible. In order, 
therefore, in the most effectual manner to gain the great end 
of our mission to this country, it will be absolutely necessary 
for all who attend this school, daily to read a portion of the 
Christian Scriptures: 1 Had such a declaration, or any thing 
similar in substance and form, been delivered in the presence 
of the hundred and fifty youths assembled in the Ohitpore 
Road School, on Monday, 2d August 1830, there cannot be 
the shadow of a doubt, that all, without exception and with 
one accord, would have instantly risen and withdrawn,— dis- 
appointed in their expectations, and irritated at what they 
would regard as an insulting address. 

Instead of this, however, the substance and form of ad- 
dress assumed, as nearly as possible, was the following 
" My young friends, one great object of my coming hither, 
is to convey to you, all the European knowledge I possess 
myself,— literary, scientific, and religious. You, too, have 
vast store-houses of knowledge, such as it is. And I can- 
not but confess the humiliating fact, that your ancestors 
were comparatively learned and civilized, when mine were 
nothing better than ignorant painted barbarians, who, 
somewhat like your Bengal tigers, ranged at large over the 
jungly forests ; or like your Himalayan bears, roved wild 
over the mountains. But times are changed now, and we, 
their descendants, have changed with the times. We have, 
now become civilized, and possess vast treasures of learning 
which we reckon worthy of being communicated to others. 
Of this, you yourselves prove that you are not ignorant, by 
the desire which you have manifested to acquire our lan- 
guage ; and, through it, our learning. As there is a book— 



538 



the Vedas— which you reckon the fountainhead of all your 
best knowledge ; so there is a book,— the Bible,— which we 
esteem the fountainhead of all our best knowledge. But 
I cannot disguise from you the fact,— neither could I if I 
would, as ye yourselves must have been told,— that between 
every department of your learning and ours,— whether liter- 
ary, scientific, or religious,— there do exist the greatest, the 
most irreconcileable differences. Many of you, I know, have 
heard that much of our knowledge, particularly on the sub- 
ject of religion, is mischievous and dangerous :— so, many of 
us have heard that much of your knowledge, especially on 
that subject, is mischievous and dangerous. How, then, in 
the case of such reported differences, ought wise men to act \ 
Ought we to look with open eyes only at our own, and turn 
with bandaged eyes towards yours. And ought you to deal 
in the like manner by us 2 Surely not. This is not the 
determination of enlightened wise men, but of blinded fools. 
Accordingly, how are wise men to act in this matter? 
Many of us do study your languages and your books. In 
this way, are we not able coolly and deliberately to compare 
your knowledge with our own, and to judge for ourselves which 
is best 1 Most assuredly. Well, what we at present wish for 
and expect is, that you, acting the part of wise men, should 
in like manner study our language and our books. And 
having done so, will not you, too, be able to institute a com- 
parison between all your knowledge of every kind, and all 
our knowledge of every kind, and thus determine for your- 
selves which is best \ Undoubtedly you may. Determine 
therefore, to persevere in your present resolution, and you 
will, ere long, acquire the means of arriving, through the 
guidance of the Great God, at a true and wise decision. In the 
meantime, will it not be wisdom on your part to suspend all 
•judgment on debateable points, till, by accession of know- 
ledge, ye be able to judge for yourselves V 

A general address of this kind, in the very peculiar cir- 
cumstances of the case, was all that was deemed, in the first 
instance, advisable. And it had the desired effect. The 
single notion that they themselves were to be constituted 



539 



judges in the matter operated like a charm. There was no 
violent wounding of national honour ; no virulent attack on 
hereditary prejudice and superstition; no wanton asper- 
sion of systems consecrated in their eyes by the homage of 
unnumbered ages. Conciliation and confidence were the re- 
sult. And all those lurking feelings, which were ready to 
break forth at the first breath of intemperance into the 
waves and tumult of resentful ire, were instantly assuaged ; 
— then followed a great calm. 

When, by this first general address, some of the most 
rugged asperities of prejudice were smoothed away :— when, 
by the vigorous introduction of the intellectual system of 
tuition, things were advancing in the happiest train :— when 
the pupils themselves had begun to catch freedom, from the 
incipient exercises ; and seemed more than delighted with 
" the new and g°od teaching" as many of them chose to ' 
designate the plan when not a few of the parents, stimu- 
lated by the daily reports which invaded the family circle, 
" came to see >" and judge, and express their own admira- 
tion then, was the vernal moment of conciliated confi- 
dence and favourable impression seized on, for fully carrying 
into effect the main design of the Institution. 

About a week after our regular commencement, when 
teachers and taught had fairly caught the spirit of the sys- 
tem, we began to urge it as a universally acknowledged part 
of every good system of education, that those principles 
should be inculcated which are calculated to affect the heart, 
and regulate the conduct ; as well as that knowledge which 
tends to improve the judgment and enlighten the understand- 
ing ;— and that, as the labours of every day were intended to 
make the youths present wiser and happier, it would be pro- 
per to commence these labours by imploring the blessing and 
protection of the Great God, whose loving-kindnesses have 
ever been exhibited towards all his creatures. After re- 
sorting to various modes of illustration and improvement, 
which it is needless to detail, we had the satisfaction to 
perceive, that the propriety and reasonableness of the pro- 
posal to adopt some practical measures in accordance with 



5 40 



the views delivered, was by some cordially assented to ; and 
by none openly called in question. There was, in conse- 
quence, very naturally excited a considerable degree of curi- 
ositv, bordering upon anxiety, to know what the plan about 
to be proposed might be. 

Having obtained from the Calcutta Bible Society a grant 
of upwards of a hundred English New Testaments for the 
use of the school, we ordered these one day to be produced ; 
—stating, that in the present imperfect state of the pupils' 
knowledge of the English language, it was not advisable to 
commence with an extemporaneous prayer, lest some parts 
might be misunderstood, and others misconstrued, and so 
evil be produced instead of good ;— that, on this account, it 
was better to have recourse to some written form of prayer 
which could be perused by all, and thoroughly explained 
and understood, previously to its being used ;— that of all the 
forms we had ever seen, we knew of none so brief and yet so 
comprehensive.— so worthy of God, and yet so appropriate to 
the wants of men— as that contained in the volume we then 
held in our hands ;— and that all would now have an op- 
portunity of judging for themselves whether it breathed a 
sentiment, or encouraged a petition, which a truly good 
man would not be ready, yea, rejoiced to offer in earnest sup- 
plication to the Great God, the Father of all. Saying this, 
with an anxiety for the result, which those present little 
knew, we presented each with a copy of the New Testament. 

All quickly and eagerly turned to the title page. Af- 
ter a moment's pause, a young man of Brahmanical caste 
started up, and with some degree of animation, cried out in 
these identical English terms :— ; " Sir, I not want read any 
thing gainst my own religion; and I not want read any 
thing of your ; and I not want be forced to become Chris- 
tian." It was then explained generally, that there need be 
no apprehension about being ever required to read any thing 
in school, writUmformatty and specifically against his religion; 
nor to peruse any thing connected with ours beyond what 
could be shown to his own satisfaction to be most worthy of 
God to bestow, and most profitable for man to know, be- 

i 



541 



lieve, and practise— that nothing could be more unfounded 
than the notion so frequently and zealously propagated by 
the enemies of truth, and so naturally believed by ignorant 
natives, that it was the deliberate intention of Europeans 
to force them to become Christians— that the very idea of 
force, when. applied to mental conviction, was the barbarous 
relic of a barbarous age, and could never be entertained by 
an enlightened mind— that all which was ever conceived, or 
could ever be intended by us, consisted simply in presenting 
in a proper form to all around, what was felt by ourselves 
to be holy, just, good, and true ; leaving it to the truth it- 
self, if favourably received, to impress the conscience and 
enlighten the understanding— and that, if it should fail in 
carrying conviction, he who propounded it could not still 
feel himself at liberty, in prosecution of his object, to resort 
to any other weapons than those of argument and persuasion. 

Though satisfaction was manifested by the silence that 
ensued, there was still a species of argumentum ad hominem 
reply resorted to, which seemed to prove irresistible. Hav- 
ing previously ascertained that some of the young men pre- 
sent had studied Persian, and that Arabic was far from 
being an uncommon acquisition among the more respect- 
able classes of Hindus, we thus in substance, addressed the 
young Brahman antagonist :— " Are there any natives who 
acquire a knowledge of other languages besides Bengali ? " 
Yes; many learn Sanskrit; some, Persian; and some, 
Arabic. "Do you know any who have studied Arabic V 
Yes. "Any who have read an Arabic book?" Yes. 
" What book ?" The Koran. « Indeed ! have they, then, 
become Mahammadans? " No, no, no— with prodigious em- 
phasis,— was the reply. " Were they not afraid of reading 
the Koran ; and did not you, in kindness, represent to them 
the exceeding danger of reading it ; lest, by becoming ac- 
quainted with its contents, they should be forced to turn 
Mahammadans?" The inference was now too palpable to 
require a separate statement in words ; and there was, in 
consequence, a gentle but almost universal expression of 
satisfaction and triumph. 



542 



The books were then opened. The Lord's Prayer was 
distinctly read and explained, paragraph by paragraph. It 
was thenceforth used every morning, as a solemn form of 
adoration and prayer, before entering on the duties of the 
day From that time forward, the first hour was devoted 
to the reading of a portion of the Bible. From the young 
men themselves, neither murmur nor objection was any more 
heard against the stated perusal of the Scriptures. It 
ie true that a few of the parents, stimulated chiefly by 
some of those who unhappily belied the Christian profes- 
sion, did shortly afterwards complain. But, m gene- 
ral, a frank and candid explanation quite satisfied them. So 
that after the expiry of several months, it could be reported 
that only three or four cases had occurred, in which the con- 
tinued study of the Bible formed a pretext for abandoning 
the school. To prevent the possibility of mistake or after 
reflection, from the time the Institution was fairly organized, 
it was made a standing rule that no boy should be admitted 
unless h is father or quardian should accompany him in person, 
and see with his o wn eyes, and hear with his own ears what was 
taught therein. 

After the Lorfs prayer, was read the parable of the pro- 
digal son ; wherein the tenderness and compassion of our 
helvenly Father towards penitent sinners, are set forth with 
such inimitable simplicity and force of truth. And as m 
Beno-al, the principal objects of worship,-kept constantly 
before the eyes of their deluded votaries, by offerings, sacri- 
fices, festivals, and self-inflicted penances-are Durga and 
Kali, the most bloody and ferocious of even Hindu divinities, 
the contrast of this parabolic representation of the Supreme 
God and Father of all, was felt in silence by many, beyond 
what at the time they could hardly venture to express. 

The next portion of Scripture selected, was the 13th 
chapter of 1st Corinthians. Perhaps in the whole Bible, 
within so narrow a compass, there could not be found a pas- 
sage which brought out so many points of contrast with the 
genius of Hinduism, as the first seven verses of that chap- 
ter. And vet, from no direct reference or allusion whatso- 



543 



ever being made to that false system, it was read not only 
without irritation,, but with positive admiration and delight, 
The apostle tells us that though he could speak « with "the 
tongues of men and of angels," and had not charity, he was 
as useless and profitless a thing as « sounding brass, or a 
tinkling cymbal:' A Hindu, is taught to believe that to 
speak with the tongues of men is of the very essence of uti- 
lity and profitableness,— but that, to speak in Sanskrit, the 
tongue of the gods, and other celestial and angelic beings, 
is not only the perfection of all superexcellent learning,' 
but an endowment of the most transcendent merit spe- 
cially reserved for Brahmans, the terrestrial representatives 
of Deity. The apostle tells us that if he had « the gift of 
prophecy, and had not charity, he was nothing." The Hin- 
du is taught to believe that the gift of casting nativities, and 
foretelling the minutiw of an individual's or a nation's his- 
tory, by means of the second sight of astrological intuition 
and calculation, not only raises the possessor far above " no- 
thing" among men, but admits him into intimate partnership 
m immunity and privilege with the gods. The apostle 
assures us, that though he understood all systems and " all 
knowledge, and had not charity, he was nothing." The Hindu 
is taught to believe that he who attains to the understand- 
ing of all systems and all knowledge, is a man who has merit 
greater far than most of the gods in the Pantheon,-has 
risen above the liability to future transmigration,— has at- 
tained the chief good, or final beatitude, which consists in 
identification with the essence of the Supreme Brahm. The 
apostle assures us that though he had "all faith so that he 
could ^remove mountains, and had not charity, he was no- 
thing." The Hindu is taught to believe that he who could 
exercise the power of working such miracles, is a man whose 
soul, even while in the body, has been severed from all the 
trammels of materialism,— has become intimately acquainted 
with the Supreme Brahm,— and is about to be wholly absorb- 
ed in his essence. The apostle tells us that though he should ' 
give " all his goods to feed the poor, and had not charity, he 
was nothing." The Hindu is taught to believe that if he gave 



544 



all Ms goods to feed the poor pilgrims and holy mendicants, 
that swarm not in thousands, but in millions, through every 
province of the land, it would be an act of such merit, that 
however great or aggravated his sins had been, it would be 
sure to secure to him the enjoyment of paradisiacal plea- 
sures. The apostle tells us that though he should give « his 
body to be burned, and had not charity, he was nothing 
A Hindu is taught to believe that if he torment his body 
by suspending it over smouldering ashes, or by applying to 
it the blazing brand, or by exposing it on an earthen stage 
to four fires under the fierce rays of a vertical sun, or finally 
by casting it into the flames to be wholly consumed,-each 
and all of these acts will raise him, irrespectively of all other 
pretensions, for a period of years proportioned to their dii- 
ferent degrees of merit, to one or other of the heavens of 
the gods In the perusal of these apostolic statements, 
there was no small amazement, secretly and honestly felt as 
afterwards confessed, though not at the time expressed in 
words The amazement was heightened chiefly by the con- 
trast, which the mind, as by the quickness and force of in- 
tuition, was drawing, at every successive step, between what 
was then read in school and what had been previously taught 
at home. 

What then, was this "charity," without which the pos- 
session of all other gifts and attainments-even the very 
highest which it had ever entered into the imagination ot the 
sa-es of Hinduism to conceive-could only leave the apos- 
tle room to confess that he was nothing? The curiosity, 
fully to comprehend what it could be, was raised to the 
highest pitch. It must be a something, and truly is a some- 
thing, which has no correspondent conception in the whole 
range of Hinduism. It is none other, viewed abstractly, 
than that perfect love to God and perfect love to man, 
which is the very bond of perfectness-the fulfilling of the 
whole law-the concentration of all conceivable moral ex- 
cellence. Viewed concretely and in detail, it is, as the apostle 
tells us, that charity which "snffereth long and is kind ; 
enviethnot; vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up ; doth 



545 



not behave itself unseemly ; seeketh not her own ; is not 
easily provoked ; thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things ; believeth all 
things ; hopeth all things ; endureth all things." As each 
of these pregnant clauses was read in succession, it was 
commented on and illustrated at some length. At every 
step, all were called on seriously to reflect ; and endeavour 
to realize in their own minds what a world this would be, if 
such " charity" formed therein the grand governing principle . 
Then would all " uncleanness, lasciviousness, hatred, vari- 
ance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, envyings, murders, 
drunkenness, revellings, and such like," be banished from 
the habitations of man :— then would '• love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," 
reign paramount in the blissful land. Earth itself would be 
turned into a heaven, purer and happier far than any which 
fable yet has feigned, or poetry conceived. 

Throughout, all were attentive; and the minds of a few be- 
came intensely rivetted,— which the glisteningeye and change- 
ful countenance,^reflecting as in a mirror the inward thought 
and varyingemotion,— most clearly indicated. Atlast,— when, 
to the picture of charity the concluding stroke was given by 
the pencil of inspiration, in the emphatic words, " endureth 
all things,"— one of the young men, the very Brahman who 
but a few days before had risen up to oppose the reading of 
the Bible, now started from his seat, exclaiming aloud, " Oh, 
Sir, that is too good for us. Who can act up to that I who 
can act up to that?" A finer exemplification, taking intu 
view all the circumstances of the case, could not well be 
imagined of the self-evidencing light of God's holy Word. 
It was an almost unconscious testimony to the superior ex- 
cellence of Christianity, extorted from the lips of an idola- 
trous Brahman by the simple manifestation of its own di- 
vine spirit. It was a sudden burst of spontaneous homage 
to the beauty, and power, and holiness of the truth, in its 
own naked and unadorned simplicity, at a moment when 
the mind was wholly untrammelled and unbiassed by preju- 
dice, or party interest, or sect. 

M m 



546 



" Too good for us ! Who can act up to that \ " —repeated 
we in the hearing of all. "Why, what you reckon 4 too 
good for us,' it is the grand object of the Bible effectually 
to teach how we may ultimately attain. What you think, 
and think truly, we cannot act up to, in our own strength, it 
is the grand object of the Bible effectually to point out how 
we may ultimately realize. And rest assured, that no one 
can study the Bible with honesty of heart, and with prayer 
to God for light and guidance, without in the end becoming 
possessed of that Divine 4 charity' which will enable him 
to act up to all that has been read, and is itself the con- 
summation of blessedness. A possession so glorious, and 
yet, through God's infinite mercy, placed within the reach 
of you all, who would not desire to labour to obtain ! And 
as the perfect and only way of obtaining it, is clearly pointed 
out in the Bible,— and the Bible is given supremely if not 
exclusively for that very purpose,— who will not henceforth 
peruse it with feelings of enhanced interest and delight V s 
The appeal was not in vain. In fact, if an angel of dark- 
ness had been suddenly metamorphosed before their eyes into 
an angel of light, the change could not appear greater than 
the difference of aspect under which the Bible now appeared 
from what it exhibited but a week before. 

The next portion of Scripture read, was " The Sermon on 
the Mount." Addressed as that Divine discourse originally 
had been to a people with whom the spirit of religion was 
nothing, and the letter every thing, it could not tally more 
exactly with the circumstances of the Hindus, had it been 
framed specifically for their " reproof, correction, and in- 
struction in righteousness." There is scarcely a statement 
of error in principle or practice, which does not find most 
strikingly exemplified its parallel or counterpart in Hindu- 
ism. There is scarcely an announcement of truth, in prin- 
ciple or practice, which does not find most strikingly exem- 
plified its contrast and contradiction in Hinduism. Yet 
not one item had any immediate or specific reference to Hin- 
duism or the Hindus. It was all directed against Judaism 



547 



and the Jews. And hence was it perused without one feel- 
ing of irritation or alarm ; though, as we advanced, it was 
felt by all, that, had the words Hinduism, Hindus, and 
Brahmans, been substituted in place of Judaism, Jews, and 
Pharisees, the representation would have been complete', not 
merely in the outline, but in the minutest details. This at- 
tentive perusal, therefore, of the divinely-constructed dis- 
course, tended to effect a total revolution of ideas;— to 
introduce a whole world of new ones. 

Such significant descriptive expressions as " the poor in 
spirit; 1 and the " pure in heart,"— so finely contrasting with 
the almost Satanic pride of caste, and the almost exclusive 
ceremonial purity of bodily ablutions,— seemed to dart into 
the soul with the force, vividness, and freshness of an imme- 
diate revelation from heaven of what was previously un- 
known, unheard of, and unconceived. No reasoning was 
needed to demonstrate the truth of the proposition,— that the 
" P oor in s P iri t" and " the pure in heart " are blessed. It 
was in general very difficult at first for the mind to emancipate 
itself from the outward yoke of carnal ordinances and the 
incubus of an all-absorbing carnality of inward vision. But 
no sooner had the grosser interceptive media been removed- 
no sooner had the Scripture notion of " poverty of spirit" and 
purity of heart " been conceived,"- though still looming, as it 
were, through the " misty horizontal air " of a mental world 
on which the Sun of Truth had not yet fully risen,— than 
the truth was admitted without argument. It seemed to 
shine in the light of the simple statement itself. It seemed 
to commend itself to the unreclaiming conscience with 
somewhat of the same intuitive force with which the axioms 
of geometry commend themselves to the unresisting reason. 
The one seemed as much the natural aliment of conscience as 
the other of reason; and, like all wholesome and appropriate 
food, it required merely to be introduced, to be at once 
received and assimilated with the substance and circulation 
of the moral system. 

The exposure of the Pharisaic fastings and disfigurings of 
the countenance, and repetitions of prayer at the corners 



548 



of the street, and divers washings, and other external per- 
formances,-^, all designed to be viewed and accepted by 
God as works of merit,— aeeme& to strike home with the con- 
victive force of the prophet's faithful admonition, " Thou art 
the man." The identity between the spirit, character, and 
actions of the sanctimonious but hypocritical Pharisees, and 
the spirit, character, and actions of the generality of Bran- 
mans, seemed so absolute and entire, as to lead some to 
wonder whether, after all, it was not the latter that were 
really present to the writers minds, though veiled under the 
fictitious name of Pharisees ! When, on one occasion, the 
question was put, What do you mean by Pharisee? a boy of 
inferior caste, looking significantly at a young Brahman m 
the same class, and then pointing to him, archly replied, 
He is one of our Pharisees I— while the Brahman simply re- 
torted in great good humour, True, very true ; my caste is 
like that of the Pharisees, or worse; but you know / am not 
to be like my caste. 

By the system of caste the Hindus have been divided and 
cantoned into so many isolated selfish sections —each scowl- 
ing on all the rest with feelings of irreconcilable aversion, 
hatred, and contempt, But, besides this general influence 
of caste which renders the race eminently " hateful, and 
hating one another,' 1 there is special provision in their sa- 
cred writings for the growth and manifestation of every 
feeling of spiteful enmity and malignant revenge ! Will it 
be credited that religion can be brought in, to inflame 
instead of mitigating the darker and more destructive 
passions of the soul! But it is even so. Not in the un- 
written traditions of a gloomy superstition, not in apocryphal 
writings disowned by all except a heretical sect— no, but in 
the Vedas— the eternal Vedas, which at every successive 
reproduction of the universe, are believed to proceed direct 
from the very mouth of Brahma— there are laid down in 
minute detail the forms of a religious service, or solemn act 
of worship, designed to involve an enemy in calamity or de- 
struction. When it is desired to insure the certainty of suc- 
cess, a priest or holy Brahman must officiate, arrayed in black 



549 



garments ; of the foes whose injury or ruin is sought, four 
images must be made, and clad in black ; the sacrificial fire 
must be kindled, and into it, after the usual consecratory 
rites, must pieces of the flesh of the appointed animal be 
thrown, from eight to a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred 
thousand, or even a million times ; at each burnt-offering, 
the priest, with his finger, must touch the mouth of the 
image of the enemy, uttering one or other of the prescribed 
forms of prayer. Of these Vedantic formula? a few may be 
instanced " Agni ! (god of fire) thou who art the mouth 
of all gods, do thou destroy the wisdom of mine enemy. 
Agni ! fill with distraction the mind of this my enemy. O 
Agni ! destroy the senses of this my enemy. Agni ! make 
dumb the mouth of this my enemy. O Agni ! fasten with 
a peg the tongue of this my enemy. Agni! reduce to 
ashes this my enemy." Hence it is that prayers, incanta- 
tions, and bloody sacrifices, for insuring the removal, subjec- 
tion, damage, or destruction of an enemy, are interwoven 
with the ordinary ceremonial observances of the people. 
The unforgiving spirit—the spirit of indomitable hate—the 
spirit of implacable revenge, is thus nursed and reared into 
plenitude of growth and strength by the varied stimulants 
of religion,— is made to kindle into a blaze of conflagration 
on the very altars of sacredness,— and is permitted to expire 
only with the real or imagined extinction of the hated foe. 
Judge, then, of the surprise and amazement of some of 
the more thoughtful of the young men, when they came to 
read these passages : « Ye have heard that it hath been said, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy ; but I 
say unto you, love your enemies ; bless them that curse you, 
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that de- 
spitefully use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be chil- 
dren of your Father which is in heaven ; for He maketh His 
sun to rise on the evil and on th* good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love 
you, what reward have ye I do not even the publicans the 
same ? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which 
is in heaven is perfect," 



550 

So deep, indeed, and intense was the impression produc- 
ed, that, in reference to one individual at least, from the 
simple reading of these verses might be dated his conver- 
sion—his turning from dumb idols to serve the living and 
the true God. There was something in them of such an 
overwhelmingly attractive moral loveliness, — something 
which contrasted so luminously with all that he had been 
previously taught to regard as revealed by God, that he 
could not help crying out, in ecstasy, " Oh, how beautiful, 
how divine ! Surely this is the truth, this is the truth, this 
is the truth: 1 It seemed to be a feeling (though of a higher 
and holier nature) somewhat akin to that experienced by the 
discoverer of a celebrated geometric theorem, when, in a 
delirium of joy, he rushed along, exclaiming, " I have found 
it, I have found it"— and did not rest satisfied till his thanks- 
givings went forth in a hecatomb of burnt victims on the 
altar of his gods. In the other case, for days and for weeks 
the young Hindu could not cease repeating the expression, 
" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you," &c. &c. con- 
stantly adding, " How beautiful ! Surely this is the truth." 
Nor was he allowed to rest satisfied till in the end his gra- 
titude for the discovery ended in renouncing all his sacri- 
fices, hecatombs, and false gods, for the one great sacrifice 
by which the true God for ever perfected them who have 
come to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

In this way we proceeded with the reading of the Bible 
for an hour daily, in all the higher classes. From the very 
imperfect knowledge which these had of English at the be- 
ginning, our progress was necessarily very slow. But the 
slowness of the progress was perhaps more than compensated 
by the searching analysis to which each sentence was sub- 
jected ; and by the variety of comment, illustrative example, 
and amplification, resorted to for the purpose of overbearing 
the barriers of ignorance, prepossessions, and misconception. 
Here must we state, once for all, that while, from the very 
first, the Bible itself was thus made a school and class-book, 
it was so made distinctly ,avowedhj, and exclusively for religious 
and devotional exercises, with the view of bringing all the 



551 



faculties of the soul into contact with the life and spirit and 
quickening influence of Jehovah's holy oracles and never, 
never for the parsing, syntactical and sundry other gramma- 
tical exercises of lingual acquisition. Than this practice, 
which, we fear, is but too common, we know of none more 
likely to lower the Bible from its unapproachable eminence of 
sacredness,as "the Book," "the Book of books;"— and we have 
never ceased, and, through God's blessing, never will cease, 
humbly but resolutely to lift up our solemn protest against 
it. We would not wish, on this subject any more than on any 
other, to advocate an untenable, or impracticable, or danger- 
ous extreme : we would pray, on the one hand, to be deli- 
vered from the Pharisaic idolatry which would hold up to the 
nations the very papyrus or parchment on which the words 
of inspiration are written, exclaiming, " Behold the Book, fall 
ye down before it, and worship it :" instead of crying aloud, 
" Behold your God revealing himself through the medium of 
His written Word ; fall ye down, and worship before Him." 
So, on the other hand, we would pray to be delivered from 
the Sadducean latitudinarianism or indifference which would 
strip the written Word of all its sacredness, by mingling it 
up with the parsings, construings, correctings, trappings, 
ferular visitations, and all the other irreverent bustle of pe- 
dagogal gymnastics. 

On the frontispiece of their Bible, the Jews were wont 
to inscribe, in flaming characters, the exclamation of fear 
and astonishment extorted from Jacob by the vision of 
Jehovah at Bethel—" How dreadful is this place ! This is 
none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of 
heaven !" On which the great Owen most appropriately re- 
marked, "So ought we to look upon the Word with a holy 
awe and reverence of the presence of God." But if any 
scheme could be devised more cunningly than another, by 
which, under the semblance of honouring and magnifying it 
as a school-book, we could succeed in divesting the perusal 
and contemplation of it of all " holy awe and reverence" of 
God's presence, it is the very practice which has now been 
reprobated— reprobated, not so much from abstract consi- 



552 



derations, however convincing, as from painful experience of 
its most blighting effects. 

If the Bible is to be made a school and class-book— and 
rather, infinitely rather, let us decide on the banishment of 
grammars, and geographies, and all popularised excerpts 
consecrated exclusively to science and the muses, from our 
schools, than suffer it to be dislodged by the great anti- 
Christian confederacy from its throne of rightful supremacy 
in wielding the sceptre over the entire educational realm : 
—If the Bible, we say, is to be made a school and class-book, 
let it not be evacuated of its Divine significance, by being 
turned into common use for testing the rules and laws of 
every self-elected dictator in the ancient domain of speech. 
Let it not be lowered from its regal dignity to dance attend- 
ance and serve as a humble vassal at the outer portals of 
knowledge. Let it be ever maintained in the right ascen- 
sion of its sacredness— the meridian altitude of its spiritual 
power. Let it be gratefully studied as the Book of Life : 
let it be joyfully consulted as the chart of heaven : let its 
holy oracles be listened to with profoundest awe : let its 
cheering revelations be welcomed and hailed as the brightest 
rays from " the ancient glory let its statutes, testimonies, 
and righteous judgments be implicitly submitted to as the 
unchanging ordinances of the King of kings ; and then, and 
then only, will that best of books— the Bible— be allowed to 
promote the grand design for which it was by heaven be- 
stowed. Then, and then only, will it be duly reverenced ; — 
the God who gave it duly honoured ;— the myriads of young 
immortals trained in educational seminaries duly quickened 
and edified,— fortified for the vicissitudes of time, and rip- 
ened for hosannahs of eternity. 

Nor let aught be alleged on the score of impracticability. 
What has been effected in an Institution for the children of 
Hindu idolaters, cannot surely be enrolled in the category 
of insuperables. At first, indeed, from the mere rudimen- 
tal attainments even of the most advanced, as well as from 
the want of elementary class-books of a gradually prepara- 
tory description, no school-book of any kind, could be had in 



553 



adequate or regular supply, but those published by the 
School-Book Society ; and from these all knowledge of a 
religious character has been systematically excluded. Now 
it must be obvious that, the very young,— those who knew 
not the English alphabet, or knew no more than the alpha- 
bet of their mother tongue,— could not read a portion of the 
Bible either in English or Bengali. What then was to be 
done ? Were these to be left wholly without religious in- 
struction until they had advanced so far as to be able to 
peruse the Scriptures ? If so, a year or two might inter- 
vene ; and, so far as reading was concerned, hundreds, in 
the course of time, might quit the Institution, as ignorant 
of divine truth, and as much immersed in heathen darkness, 
as when they entered it. This was a distracting reflection,' 
and opened up a most comfortless view of the future,. What 
then was to be done ? What was the remedy % If there were 
any, how was it to be applied ? The remedy devised was 
simple ; and, as the result proved, effective. It consisted in the 
compilation of a progressive series of three new elementary 
school-books —each consisting of two distinct divisions or 
parts, which might be denominated the common and the re- 
ligious. 

The first part was composed of appropriate lessons of the 
most miscellaneous character ; —partly original, partly se- 
lected, and partly altered, abridged, or compiled from the 
contents of pre-existing school-books. Into this division all 
manner of topics were introduced, calculated to arrest the 
attention, excite the curiosity, and summon into vigorous 
exercise the conceptive and other intellectual faculties. Here, 
too, all orthographical, etymological, syntactical, and pro- 
sodial exercises were carried on with the most boundless 
freedom without any risk of jarring with that solemnity of 
feeling which the very name of Deity ought ever to inspire;— 
without dislocating any doctrine of faith or linking it with 
grotesque, incongruous, or painful associations ;— without 
trenching by a single intrusive movement on any one province 
of sacredness. The second division, in each number of the 
series, was devoted exclusively to religious topics. These por- 



554 



tions were read, not for the purpose of grammatically master- 
ing the English language; but for the sake of gathering up 
the doctrines and precepts, warnings and promises, examples 
and lessons therein taught, exhibited, or enforced. They 
were treated, therefore, purely as means instrumentally de- 
signed to awaken the conscience, and variously to influence 
and impress the heart. Thus, by the separate perusal of a 
small portion of each division daily, there arose a happy com- 
bination of lingual and literary acquisition, and of those no- 
bler exercises which tended to promote moral and religious 
improvement. 

What was the result of this combined process systema- 
tically persevered in ? Let us consider the matter a little 
farther. At first, till the advantage of it was experienced, 
many of the pupils were apt to get impatient at being so 
closely confined to one book. A most vicious system had 
begun to domineer in almost all the elementary English 
schools. From the thirst for a smattering of English, scores 
of empirics arose who professed to have recipes for some royal 
road towards the acquisition of the language. This consist- 
ed in making the deluded pupils secure a load of books. In 
a few days or weeks after entering school, each pupil might 
be seen laden with a primer, a grammar, a dictionary, a book 
of geography, a collection, Gay's Fables, History of Greece, 
Pope's Iliad, and other works. A few sentences might be 
read in each ; and the student made to believe that he was a 
ready-madeEnglishscholar. The system had taken such deep 
hold of the general mind, that it was no easy matter to per- 
suade even the most intelligent, that they could ever become 
scholars without at once being put in possession of such a 
multitude of books,— that it was not the amount of know- 
ledge heaped up in the pile of school-books, which made them 
learned or wise, but the amount actually transferred to the 
mental repository. And though many were at length satis- 
fied from the reasons and arguments adduced, yet they were 
so constantly hooted, twitted, and ridiculed, as the "students 
of one book," and, inferentially, " of one idea," by acquaint- 
ances and companions who daily paraded the streets with 



555 



an encyclopaedia of knowledge in their hands, with scarcely 
a single idea in their heads, that it required every conceiv- 
able expedient, on the part of the master, to curb the spirit of 
impatience, to suppress the rising murmur of dissatisfaction, 
and to save the newly launched vessel from foundering in the 
struggle to ascend against a torrent of viciousness. Still 
we persevered ;— our motto being, Wait and see ; have pa- 
tience and judge by the result ;— and our daily repeated 
aphorism, It is not the quantity of aliment crudely and has- 
tily swallowed, but the quantity properly prepared and well 
digested, which can assimilate with and nourish the general 
system, whether of body or of mind. Still, we persevered,— 
every lesson, though very short, being made a vital exercise 
for all the faculties,— a healthful employment for the under- 
standing,^ or the heart, or both. And by the time it was 
finished, it had been gone over so often, and in so many dif- 
ferent forms, that there was scarcely a boy in the class, who, 
if asked, would not be prepared to repeat it verbatim from 
memory. 

What, now we are prepared to ask, was the result of such 
a process,— continuously and systematically persevered in i 
The result was necessarily of a miscellaneous nature. But 
one portion of it was, that by the time any of the classes 
reached the end of Instructor, No. III., such was the com- 
mand which they had acquired of English vocables, both as 
to enunciation, derivation and meaning,— -such the mastery of 
idiomatic English phraseology,— such the stock of new ideas 
gleaned in diverse ways, from different departments of gene- 
ral knowledge,— such, above all, the accumulated store of 
Scripture principles, and Scripture facts,— that they were pre- 
pared not only to read with fluency, but to gather up with a 
considerable degree of intelligence, the drift, scope, and im- 
port of any English work, written in a simple, chaste, and 
classical style. This, therefore, was the stage chosen for a 
complete change of class-books. Instead of having an addi- 
tional Instructor, No. IV., constructed after the model of 
the three former, one half secular and the other sacred,—, 
it was now found practicable and best, at once to put a copy 



556 



of the entire Bible into the hands of each pupil for exercises 
in the religious department of the course ; together with se- 
parate class-books of a higher grade, for conducting the his- 
torical, geographical, scientific, and other more advanced 
studies. From this arrangement, the pupils, having their 
minds equipped and furnished, entered with signal advantage 
on the prosecution of higher branches of knowledge ;— every 
branch from the outset being made an exercise for the facul- 
ties ;— no step in advance being taken till the previous one 
had been thoroughly secured— and every step in the onward 
progression being a natural preparative for that which was 
designed to follow it. 



Here we may remark on the influence and importance of 
what is usually termed secular knowledge. The subject has 
repeatedly been sufliciently illustrated ; and there need be 
no repetition now. Only, in sketching the early rise and pro- 
gress of the Calcutta Mission, we may refer historically, to 
the simple incident which opened up to our own mind, the 
first practical glimpse of the real importance of the engine 
which knowledge had placed in our hands for the thorough 
demolition of the most ancient system of error now on the 
face of the earth. The manner in which Bible truth came 
into silent yet effective collision with the errors of Hinduism, 
has already been briefly noticed. And in referring to the 
like collision between the truths of modern literature and 
science, and certain other errors of Hinduism held alike 
venerable and sacred, we have one of the finest practical il- 
lustrations of true knowledge becoming the handmaid of true 
religion, which the history of the world can supply. 

The incident has been described as simple. Indeed, it is 
so simple, that to many it may appear ludicrously insignifi- 
cant ; utterly undignified, and painfully out of keeping with 
the more serious parts of this narrative. And so it might be 
viewed, if it had been isolated, and if it had terminated wholly 
in itself. But nothing is insignificant, which becomes the 
starting point of an onward series, terminating in some ; 



557 



important result. Still less is it insignificant, if, instead of 
being merely the first number of such a series, it should be 
the occasional cause that suggested, and originated the entire 
series itself. What can be more common, apparently more 
insignificant, than the fall of an apple \ And yet, in the case 
of the immortal Newton, this familiar incident,— viewed as 
the suggestive source of that mighty series which terminated 
in the most magnificent of all human discoveries,— is at once 
rescued from its littleness by the vastness of the tree which 
sprung from so humble a root. 

But for the incident itself.— The conversation being con- 
ducted, partly in Bengali and partly in English, a few days 
after the commencement of our labours, it happened that 
the word " rain" occurred in the lesson of one of the junior 
classes. In the course of ordinary interrogation, the question 
was put, What is rain? It was replied, " Water from the sky." 
Has it been produced by the sky itself! " No." How then 
has it been formed? « Oh," said one, with the smartness and 
self-possession so characteristic of Hindu youth, " Do you not 
know that yourself?" I think I do, said the master; but 
my present object is to find out whether you know it. " Well " 
remarks another, with an air of manifest satisfaction, « 111 tell 
you. It comes from the trunk of IndiVs elephant." In- 
deed, said I, that is a new theory of the origin of rain 
which I did not know before ; and I should now like to be 
informed on what evidence it is founded. " All I can say 
about it," responded he, "is, that my Guru, (or religious 
teacher,) told me so." But your Guru must have some reason 
for telling you so. Did he ever see the elephant himself? 
g Oh no, how could he ? The elephant is wrapped up in the 
cloud, as in a covering ; and no one can, therefore, see it 
with his own eyes." How then came the Guru to know that 
the elephant was there at all ? « To be sure," said he, « because 
the Shastra says so:' Now I understand the matter : You 
have asserted that the rain comes from the trunk of Indra's 
elephant, simply because the Guru has told you that this is 
the account contained in the Shastra ? « Certainly : for, 
though I have never seen it with my own eyes, vet I believe' 



558 



it is there ; because the Guru has told me that the Shastra 
says so ; and what the Shastra says must be true." 

At the early period at which this conversation took place, 
tyro as we were in our knowledge of the minutia? of Hinduism, 
we werenot in the least aware of the existence of such a theory 
at all. Hence the reality of our own surprise when it was 
first announced. Subsequently we learned that either the 
boy or the Guru had been under a slight mistake. The 
Shastra-theory of the cause of a specific meteorological phe- 
nomenon, had been expanded into a theory of the origin of 
rain in general. Strictly speaking, it is what we term a 
" waterspout, 11 which in the Shastras is declared to be a 
violent jet from the trunk of the elephant on which Indra, 
the god of the firmament, is represented as riding when tra- 
versing his aerial domains. This slight mistake, however, 
very little affected the mode and manner of the mental pro- 
cess of arriving at the conclusion which followed. 

True to our original predetermined design, we did not 
choose directly to contradict the Shastra, by casting ridicule 
on the alleged theory, as palpably absurd; or branding it as 
absolutely false,-the manifest corruption of a mythological 
fable. Instead of this we simply remarked to the boys that 
the theory which their Guru had taught was very differ- 
ent, indeed, from that which our Guru had taught us in 
Scotland. And now that we had learnt from them their 
theory on the subject, it was asked whether they would not 
like to hear ours, and so have an opportunity of comparing 
the two together. Nothing would delight them more. Their 
attention was then directed to a very simple phenomenon. 
It was asked, In boiling your rice what is observed to rise 
from the vessel \ " Smoke or vapour." When a dry lid is 
held for some time over it, what effect is produced ! " It gets 
wet. What makes it wet? " The smoke or vapour." True; 
and when it gets very, very wet, does all the vapour continue 
to stick to it 2 « No ; it falls off in drops. 11 Very good. What 
then would you say of the vapour itself, that it is dry or 
wet ? " Wet, sure enough. 11 And whence can the wet vapour 
proceed? " It can only be from the water in the vessel. 11 Is 



559 



the vapour a different kind of substance from the water I 
No." Why think you so I " Because when it gathers on the 
lid we see it turn into water again." So you conclude that 
the vapour is just apart of the water in the vessel? "Yes." 
What then drives it off from the rest, and makes it fly into 
the air ? " It is its nature to do go." Think a moment ; when 
you hold a cup of cold water in your hand, do you see va- 
pour arising from it ? " No." What then makes the differ- 
ence between the drinking water in your cup, and the water 
that boils the rice ? " The one is cold and the other warn," 
What makes it warm ? « The fire: 1 So then, it is from 
the water warmed by the fire that you see the vapour as- 
cend, and not from the cold I « Yes." What must you in- 
fer from this ? " That it is the fire which in making the water 
warm, makes it go into vapour." Very right. The at- 
tention was next directed to the application of all this. 
The pupils were referred to a very familiar phenomenon in 
Bengal. After a heavy fall of rain on the heated ground, 
when the morning sun darts from a cloudless horizon, they 
were asked what they had been accustomed to witness*? 
" Great vapours." It was then brought out, at some length, 
in an interrogatory form, that these vapours consisted of 
water exhaled by the heat of the sun ; like the vapour 
separated from the water in the vessel, by the heat of, the 
fire;_that these vapours, ascending, impinged on the cold, 
upper strata of the atmosphere, exactly as the vapour from 
the water in the vessel did upon the cold lid;— and that, be- 
coming there condensed and accumulated beyond what the 
atmosphere could uphold, the whole fell back again upon 
earth, in multiplied drops of rain. Such, added we, is the 
simple theory of the origin of rain, which we once learnt 
from our Guru in Scotland. 

When there is an open and ingenuous mind, and an 
honest heart, we may well admit, with the French philoso- 
pher, that there is no argument so persuasive as truth; 
which, in such a case, has no need to exert all its proofs' 
but enters naturally into the understanding;— leaving the dis- 
ciple nothing to do when it is once learnt, but to think of 



560 



it. Most strikingly was the force of this remark exempli- 
fied in the instance now narrated. Such was the directness 
of the analogy, such the obtrusive verisimilitude of the 
whole statement, that no sooner was the identity of the 
two sets of phenomena announced as a fact, than the truth 
of the given theory was conceded, in the first moment of in- 
genuous impulse, without any further proof. " How natural ! 
—how like the truth '—surely it is true ! "—was the general 
exclamation. Instantly, however, one of the boys,— as if sud- 
denly recovering his recollection, and finding that he had 
committed himself, and gone too far,— began to manifest 
some tokens of alarm at the unwelcome discovery : " Ah," 
said he, with a peculiar earnestness of tone and manner, 
"Ah! what have I been thinking? If your account > 
the true one, what becomes of our Shastra f^what becomes of 
our Shastra ? If your account be true, then must our Shastra 
be false. Our Shastra must either not be from God, or God must 
have written lies. But that is impossible ; the Shastra is true, 
Brahma is true ;—so your Gurus account must be false :—and 
yet it looks so like the truth / " 

Now, here was the commencement or first germ of a mental 
struggle, which, though painfully protracted, and marked 
by numberless alternations, only terminated in the case of 
some, with the entire overthrow of Hinduism. Up to that 
moment, the very notion that it was possible for any thing 
in the holy Shastras to be false, had not been conceived as 
the creation of even a fitful dream. On the contrary, 
the youth had been taught that these Shastras were the 
very essence of unchanging truth,— that as such they had 
commanded the undoubting belief of all ages,— and that to 
these, as the ultimate infallible standard, from which there 
can be no appeal, the decisive reference must be made in 
all matters of Government and law, custom and manners, 
philosophy and religion. The conviction resulting from 
this tuition being matured at an earlier period than memory 
can well trace, it becomes inseparably linked with the most 
hallowed associations, — inwoven with all the modes of 
thought, and incorporated with the strongest impulses of 



561 



nature, — impulses of interest, prejudice, and pride. Hence, 
in the case of a thorough-bred Hindu, of all possible axioms^ 
that which is believed to be the simplest, clearest, and most 
indisputable is, that whatever is contained in the Shastras 
must be true ; and whatever is contrary to the Shastras must 
be false. Even to hesitate on a point so sacred and funda- 
mental—a point so substantiated as to take its station of su- 
perior rank and authority in the van of all axiomate truths, 
—must presuppose a degree of mental effort which those who 
have been nursed in the lap of truth and freedom in a Chris- 
tian land can never adequately conceive. Notwithstanding, 
m the case now described, there was at least a momentary 
hesitation. It was clear as the light of day, that a disturbing 
force had, for the first time, operated on the very founda- 
tion-stone of systematic error in the mind,— that an arrow 
from the full quiver of universal truth had fairly lodged 
in its most impregnable citadel. In other words, there 
was now the sudden injection of a doubt, where all doubt 
was believed to be impossible ; there was the sudden start- 
ing of a suspicion, where suspicion was believed to be an in- 
sult to the memory of an immortal ancestry — an impious 
contempt of the authority of the gods. Yet, so palpable 
were the facts, so natural the inference and so like the truth, 
—that, in spite of such an array of antecedent antipathy, the 
mind strove in vain to shake itself loose from a dreaded and 
hated but struggling and fast-cleaving conviction. 

On this simple incident, we make the following additional 
remarks : — 

Though we were previously acquainted in a general way 
with the fact, that modern literature and science were as much 
opposed as Christianity itself, to certain fundamental tenets 
of Hinduism ; our own conception on the subject was vague 
and indeterminate. It floated in the horizon as an intangible 
abstraction. Now, this incident— by reducing the abstract 
into the concrete, — by giving the vague generality a sub- 
stantial form,— by converting the loosely theoretical into the 
practically experimental,— at once arrested, fixed, and de- 
fined it. A vivid glimpse was opened, not only of the effect 

N n 



562 



of true knowledge, when brought in contact with Hinduism ; 
but of the modui operandi,-^ precise mode m which it 
operated in producing the effect. 

To what practical determination did this glimpse clear 
the way ! It led to an immediate inquiry into all the more 
vulnerable points of Hinduism;— or those points which were 
most weak and exposed, because they admitted of being as- 
sailed with weapons drawn from the magazine of sense,— with 
the facts of observation and the results of experiment. From 
a daily advancing knowledge of what these points were, 
advantage was taken of every favourable position to make 
a fresh assault. But there was no going out of our way in 
quest of such points ; neither were there any forced marches 
in order to reach them. No. Advantage was simply taken 
of any appropriate term, incident, fact, or event, just as it 
might happen to occur in any of the daily lessons. In this 
way the predisposing tendencies to suspicion were greatly 
allayed. Neither, when the opportunity presented itself, was 
there any formal crusade against the false system; any open 
and direct attack ; any offensive display of the number and 
strength of our forces. We knew too well, that all this 
would only irritate the ever-jealous spirit of Hinduism- 
provoke it to assume the aspect of a partisanship embittered, 
because aggrieved,— and eventually lead to the organization 
of systematic unconquerable opposition. On the contrary, 
the uniform method was, simply to announce and explain 
any principle or fact as it occurred ; and though it might 
be" known to clash with something corresponding in Hin- 
duism, the contrariety was never first pointed out by the 
teacher. No. He contented himself with a statement and 
exposition of the truth,— leaving it to the pupils themselves 
to make that special application of it which could not fail to 
detect and expose contrariety. And seldom indeed did they 
fail to make the desired application, altogether unprompt- 
ed and unchallenged, save by the self-evidencing forcible- 
ness of the contrast between the new information imparted, 
and their own pre-existing conceptions. The truths were 
simply announced ; and, when assented to on the ground 



563 



of their own independent evidence, were left to work their 
own way. Often, often, was the truth of a principle or 
fact admitted before its hostile nature could be under- 
stood, or the unavoidableness of its application descried. 
In this way there was a sort of silent warfare inces- 
santly maintained,— the blow being levelled with deadlier 
aim, inasmuch as it was seldom known beforehand whence 
it was to proceed,— and a species of raking fire kept up 
from self-exploding engines that lurked unseen and unsus- 
pected through every portion of the new territory traversed 
in the daily march. When the wound was once inflict- 
ed, it was too late to think of a safe retreat, or of escaping 
unscathed. When assent was once given, as the result of 
acknowledged demonstration, it was too late to attempt to 
draw back or withhold it. Honourable retreat was impos- 
sible. If the principle or fact be true, it must be applied. 
The application is made, and what follows « Another bolt 
or bar is wrenched from one of the gateways ; another stone 
is drawn from one of the foundations ; another fastening is 
loosened from one of the barricades of the fortress of Hin- 
duism. And thus one part after another is torn away, till the 
whole is in ruins. It was originally resolved to introduce the 
higher branches of literature and science, as indispensable 
to an enlarged and liberal education. But what a new and 
special incentive was now supplied for their introduction ? 
What new motives ? It now seemed as if geography, general 
history, and natural philosophy,— from their direct influence 
in destroying Hinduism,— had been divested of their secu- 
larly, and stamped with an impress of sacredness. In this 
view of the case, the teaching of these branches seemed no 
longer an indirect, secondary, ambiguous part of missionary 
labour,— but, in one sense, as direct, primary, and indubit- 
able as the teaching of religion itself. 

Again, we may remark on the advantage which the advo- 
cate of truth possesses, when the system which he assails 
abounds with physical as well as metaphysical errors. The 
former are of a nature so much more palpable, and easier of 
overthrow than the latter, because they admit of being sub- 



564 

jected to rigorous experiment, or tested by the evidence of sense. 
So long as a false system is confined exclusively to the re- 
gion of the imaginative, the intangible, the invisible, the spi- 
ritual, it may be unassailable by any merely human weapons ; 
but let it once descend into the region of the real, the tan- 
gible, the visible, the physical, and every sense may supply 
irresistible weapons of attack. There is nothing that galls 
a learned Mahammadan more than when a skilful antagonist 
contrives to draw him off from the metaphysics of the Koran 
to some of its physical dogmata. When asked whether the 
religion of the Koran was designed to be universal,— he glories 
in replying in the affirmative. When asked whether it is not 
an imperative ordinance of his faith, that, during the great 
annual festival of the Ramzan, everyone of the faithful should 
fast from sunrise to sunset,— he unhesitatingly, and without 
qualification, admits that this is a command which dare not 
be broken without an act of impiety against God,— an act of 
contempt against Mahammad, the prophet of God. You then 
appeal to the indisputable geographical fact, that in the arc- 
tic and antarctic regions, the period from sunrise to sunset 
annually extends to several months. You next ply him with 
the physical impossibility of the supposed Divine ordinance 
being observed in these regions ; and then you push home 
the alternative, either that his religion was not designed to 
be universal, and therefore, according to his own previous 
admission, not Divine ; or that he who framed the Koran 
was unacquainted with the geographical fact, and therefore, 
instead of being inspired by God, must have been an ignorant 
impostor. So perfectly galled does the Mahammadan feel 
when for the first time plied with this argument, that he 
usually cuts the Gordian knot by boldly denying the geogra- 
phical fact ! And when, afterwards, he finds the amount of 
evidence in its favour too overwhelming to be set aside>y 
an unsupported negative, many, many are the glosses and 
ingenious subterfuges to which he feels himself impelled to 
resort. But these in time serve the cause of truth ; for 
when the day of sifting and shaking comes, the perverse in- 
genuity of these scholastic defences will only expose the des- 



565 



perateness of the cause. One strong clear glance of unfet- 
tered common sense will cause them to be numbered with 
the things that were. 

Its intermeddling with physics proved one of the chiefest 
sources of weakness in Popery at the time of the Reforma- 
tion. Had it kept within the domain of spirit, the shock 
of the Reformation might not have proved half so tremen- 
dous. In that case, the whole of the worldly philosophic 
race, who cared as little about vital religion as their 
predecessors of Greece or Rome, might have eyed the sys- 
tem with cold indifference or silent contempt ; and it would 
have been spared their sharp missiles. Unhappily, however, 
for itself, though happily for mankind, it did cross the limits 
of the spiritual domain. Entering the physical, it dallied 
with prevailing errors ; and, seizing them in its embrace, 
henceforth identified and made them inseparably one with 
itself. Never was there a more suicidal act than when the 
Church of Rome staked its infallibility on the truth of these 
errors !-_ when, for example, it thundered out from one of 
the holiest of its tribunals the celebrated verdict— ." That to 
maintain the sun to be immoveable, and without local mo- 
tion, in the centre of the world, is an absurd proposition, 
false in philosophy, heretical in religion, and contrary to the 
testimony of Scripture,— that it is equally absurd and false 
in philosophy to assert, that the earth is not immoveable in 
the centre of the world ; and considered theologically, equally 
erroneous and heretical. ,, A blunder this so great, that many 
have found it hard to say, in the result, which proved most 
disastrous, the doctrine of indulgences in religion, or of the 
mobility of the sun, and the immobility of the earth in astro- 
nomy !— which entailed the most terrible retribution in after- 
ages, the persecution of Lutheror the imprisonment of Galileo ! 
In consequence of such a system as that now recorded, the 
Church of Rome made itself strangely vulnerable, by gratui- 
tously erecting one of the weakest possible points of defence; 
and that one, too, in front of the very position where the enemy 
could erect some of his strongest batteries. It heedlessly 
subjected its own errors to the resistless demonstration and 



566 



fatal exposure of sense and science. It provoked to an ex- 
terminating warfare against itself, the embattled phalanx of 
new philosophers, as well as of sincere theologians. Before 
the united attack, Popery fell from its high places through 
half the nations. And the Protestantism which succeeded, 
involved a protest against those egregious errors in physics, 

which, in the hour of its delusion, it enstamped as sacred 

verities, — almost as much as a protest against those senseless 
traditions that superseded the Word of God, — those dam- 
nable heresies that nullified the work of redemption alto- 
gether. 

Its having descended into the region of physics, is proving 
in our own day one of the primary sources of the weakness 
of Hinduism. Had it been exclusively confined to the 
Idealism or Pantheism of the Vedant, Hinduism would with- 
stand all the mightiest assaults of such gross and ponderous 
weapons as those of sense and fact. Right well do the 
most skilful of its Brahmanical defenders know this. Hence, 
their policy is to draw off their antagonist from the domain 
of physics and sense, to the region of metaphysics and trans- 
cendentalism. And if he is so unskilful as to allow himself 
to be dragged away, he may already bid a long adieu to 
victory. When all the premises are not only subtile meta- 
physical abstractions, but bold and unwarranted assump- 
tions, what must the elaborate superstructure be? Such, how- 
ever, is that abstract of the Hindu Vedas, called Vedantism. 
Effectually to reach such a system by argument, solely based 
on primary truths, or universal intuitions, were as vain as the 
attempt of Sisyphus to roll his stone to the summit of the 
mountain. Effectually to apply to it the deductions of obser- 
vation and experiment, were like pouring water for ever into 
the same bottomless buckets. But no system of false religion 
ever abounded more with false physics than Hinduism. To 
these the great mass of the people most resolutely adhere. 
Why not, then, bring into contact with these, the opposite 
truths which are level to ordinary understanding, and reduci- 
ble to the evidence of sense \ Already has it been tried with 
effect ; already have hundreds been thereby rescued from the 



567 



yoke ; and true science will prove far more formidable to 
Hinduism than to Popery ; inasmuch as physical errors are 
far more intimately wrought into the very frame and texture 
of the general system of Hinduism, than false philosophy 
ever was into the fabric of Popery. 

Here, we may remark on the advantage of having the 
young to address even on the subject of physical truths, in 
preference to the aged. The mind of the natural man uni- 
versally yields with reluctance to whatever mars its self- 
formed systems and reasonings. Often has the sceptical phi- 
losopher in Europe contrasted the demonstrable evidence of 
science, with what he chooses to denominate the fluctuating 
principles of moral and religious evidence ; and often has he 
gloried in the solution which this seems to give of the appa- 
rent stability and ready reception of science, and the appa- 
rent changeableness and frequent rejection of revealed reli- 
gion. But a brief sojourn among the adult Brahmans of 
India, would tend to lay his gloryings in the dust, and prove 
the fallacy of his conclusions. He would there learn that 
when on any subject men have been long habituated to be- 
lieve without supporting evidence, they will continue, with- 
out any reclamation either of reason or conscience, to be- 
lieve in spite of opposing evidence. He would there learn 
that golden but despised lesson of practical wisdom, that 
the admission of any evidence of any truth very much depends 
on the particular interest of individuals, and the existing state 
of their heart. Thus, men's hearts by nature are in love with 
the world, its pursuits, its pleasures, and its gains. They 
have an interest in discrediting the evidence of a pure, holy, 
and humbling religion, which is opposed to worldliness in 
every shape ; and while they can, they will turn a deaf ear 
to it ! Now, in India, it so happens, that the minds of the 
learned Brahmans are preoccupied with a system of false 
philosophy, which, equally with their system of false religion, 
professes to be revealed from heaven. Their craft, there- 
fore, depends on the existence of the former as well as of 
the latter. Their worldly honours, credit, reputation, and 
support, are indissolubly leagued with its permanent con- 



568 

tinuance ; and they have a vital interest in rejecting all evi- 
dence/ however clear, or however potent, which would in the 
least degree interfere with it. Accordingly, as a matter of fact, 
all those Brahmans who have grown up to maturity, under the 
full influence of their own system, all those whose minds 
have been thoroughly formed by it, whose interest and hon- 
our, whose pride and prejudice, whose natural affection and 
religious feelings have been wholly pre-engaged in its behalf 
—all these are found prepared to treat with sovereign con- 
tempt, not only the demonstrations of modern science, but the 
very testimony of their own senses, rather than relinquish " one 
jot or one tittle," of what is so dear to them ! Let an ex- 
periment the most triumphant be exhibited, if it only tend 
to expose some part of their corrupt philosophical creed, ra- 
ther than yield their assent, they will not scruple to pro- 
nounce the whole as maya,— the effect of mere optical 
illusion !— or rather of the illusory energy of the Supreme 
Brahm ! 

As a curious illustration of this general assertion, we may 
relate the following anecdote :— One day, when we were en- 
gaged in reading a portion of the New Testament in Bengali, 
with a learned Brahman, the subject of baptism occurred. 
He asked various questions respecting the import and design, 
which we endeavoured to answer. " So then," said he, " the 
water is employed as a symbol merely, of the cleansing effi- 
cacy of Christ's blood ; and not as possessed of any inherent 
cleansing Efficacy." Yes. " Then," said he, " our system 
is superior to yours." How so \ " Why, we have water 
that possesses the power of washing away sin." Whence 
comes that water I " It is the water of the Ganges." But 
why not any other water as well ; for instance the water of 
that tank,— pointing to one in the neighbourhood?^ "Be- 
cause," said he, " Granges water alone is endowed with the 
quality of essential purity." Essential purity ! What do 
you mean by that * It often looks the most impure of all 
waters \ " True, it looks so ; but the mud and other loose 
ingredients are no part of it ; these are adventitious, and by 
simply allowing the water to stand, all the particles may be 



569 

seen to separate and subside of their own accord." After 
these particles have subsided, do you maintain that the 
water is essentially pure i « Yes." That there is in it 
nought whatsoever which has not been spontaneously sepa- 
rated? " Nothing." What if something could be shown 
to you still to exist therein,— something which has not 
been separated along with the visible muddy sediment. 
"That is impossible." Well, well; but what, suppose it 
could be shown to you I Having then explained the nature 
of a microscope, and of the infusory living atoms which it 
reveals, we put the case hypothetically, as we had no instru- 
ment by us. Now, suppose you were made to see these liv- 
ing creatures in the Ganges water, even after it has been fil- 
tered of all gross impurities, to your own satisfaction ; would 
you not be compelled to give up your dogma of essential pu- 
rity, as explained by yourself \ "No." What! Would 
you deny the testimony of your own eyes ? " No ; not that 
either." What ! Not give up your dogma, and not deny 
the testimony of sense ? How do you get out of the dilemma ? 

Why, rather than admit the existence of such minute liv- 
ing creatures in pure Ganges water, I would believe that my 
senses did deceive me,— that it was the result of some inexpli- 
cable optical illusion ; but in the present case such an alter- 
native would not be necessary." What then ? How can you 
reconcile your supposed perception of the animalculae with the 
resolute maintenance of your original dogma I " Oh ! " said 
he, « I would simply insist upon it, that the living creatures 
existed not in the Ganges water, hut in the interposing glass,— 
and that it was some peculiar quality in the water which ren- 
dered them visible in the glass I " Now if the tangible, visi- 
ble, and experimental, could be gravely and easily disposed 
of m this way, it must be seen how endless and hopeless all 
mere argument, founded either on intuitive principles of be- 
lief, or on admitted facts, must prove in the case of such 
minds. And thus it is, that an instructive exhibition, the 
hare possibility of which may never have occurred even to the 
imagination of our European savans, may be manifested to 
the view, as often as the experiment is tried.— -On the one 



570 



side, the sceptical European philosopher, smiling with scorn 
at the senseless incredulity of the Indian Brahman,— and on 
the other, the Indian Brahman smiling with conscious supe- 
riority, at the good-natured credulity of the European phi- 
losopher ! 

It has recently been remarked, that "the prejudices and 
multiform errors of a Jew educated in the service of the 
Talmud, are not less subtile, and often are more fearfully 
wrought into his very soul, than those of philosophic Hin- 
duism." That may be ;— having had no experience of such 
a Jew, having never had it in our power to make the com- 
parison, we dare not be so presumptuous as to deny the pos- 
sibility. But we have had experience of a " philosophic Hin- 
du ; "—and this we will say, that we have no language which 
can adequately express the fearful working of his subtile sys- 
tem into the soul. It seems wrought into the soul, like 
woof into the warp ; so as to be destructible only with its 
destruction. The soul seems imbedded in it; yea transfixed; 
yea impaled ; so that there can be no separation but in 
death. The two seem united, not in the way of mechanical 
juxtaposition, however close ; but blended and fused, after 
the manner of chemical combination, which no mere force, 
no mere violence can ever disassociate. And if after this 
superlative degree of in-working, impaling, and intimate 
amalgamation, there can be still a higher degree,— the fear- 
ful pre-eminence of being greater than the greatest of the 
prejudiced devotees of the false Brahmanical philosophy must 
be awarded to the Talmudic Rabbi ! 

How widely different the case of the young ; even though 
subjected to the varied influences of the system from earliest 
years of infancy! Their minds are pliant, supple, and 
ductile,— already prepossessed, it is true, in favour of the 
system, but not perfectly inwoven with it ;— preoccupied 
but not fixedly impressed ;— pre-engaged, but not actually 
fused in its mould. The process,— which naturally leads to 
such intimate union, blending and fusion,— has fairly be- 
gun ; and unless timeously arrested, must, in riper years, 
terminate in an apparently unalterable state. Youth, 



571 



then, in its openness and frankness, its ingenuous candour, 
and unsuspecting honesty,-youth is the golden season for 
getting the start of confirmed worldly public interests, inve- 
terate prejudice, rivetted religious feeling, the love of ap- 
plause, the pride of reputation, the dread and shame of 
apostasy from a cause once defended ; -youth is the golden 
season for favourably preoccupying the mind with principles 
of truth, connected with every department in the worlds of 
matter or of spirit,— with " the knowledge and love of God 
our Saviour, before the actual hahits of guilt are engrafted 
upon the evil bias of corrupt nature,"— with the knowledge 
and love of every science that unfolds the wondrous work- 
manship of the Divine Architect, or promotes the social well- 
being of man, before the habits of systematic error have grown 
up like rank weeds in the barren soil of ignorant nature. As 
regards, therefore, the facility of all sound instruction, whe- 
ther literary, scientific, or theological ; and the prospect of 
cultivation, whether intellectual, moral, or religious, there is a 
prodigious difference between the aged and the young. It 
is a difference of degree, however, and not of kind. There 
is the same original corrupt bias, the same original barren 
ignorance. The same corrupt bias is gradually moulded by 
the same various influences into the like habitual modes of 
thought, feeling, and action ; and in the same barren soil 
there are sown, and take root, and spring up luxuriantly the 
same seeds of error. But between the two there is the same 
difference as between the incipient growth and the mature- 
between the soft and the indurated clay,— the malleable gold 
and the brittle cast-iron,— the pliant twig and the trained 
tree. In a word, the mind of the young is like a plantation 
of tender saplings ; the mind of the aged like a forest of 
gnarled oaks. 

Once more, we may remark as to the position allotted to 
Bible instruction in the Institution. Some there are who 
still dream that, in the enlightenment of India, we are apt 
to award the palm of superiority to useful and scientific 
knowledge;— advocating its precedency in point of rank, and 
its priority in point of time. These individuals, happily few 



572 

in number, imbued with a good share of the Brahnianical 
spirit, and emulous of their brethren in the East, first seize 
on a congenial report without inquiry ; unthinkingly believe 
it without evidence ; and then resolutely persevere m the 
belief, not only in spite of evidence, but in spite of the 
most solemn protestations to the contrary. Consigning them 
to the same category of incurables as the Indian branch of 
the great brotherhood, we would appeal to all who are not 
predetermined against conviction. Requesting of them but 
a moment's consideration, we ask :— From the statement 
now given, does it not appear as a simple matter of historic 
fact, that in the Assembly's Mission seminary, Bible in- 
struction did actually precede all other regular instruction I 
There was no previous course of literary or scientific edu- 
cation. So soon as the Institution was effectually organized, 
the Bible was introduced. Its sacred lessons were taught 
before the inculcation of a single branch of " useful" or « sci- 
entific" knowledge. Its use as a class-book was antecedent 
to the employment of any book of general literature or sci- 
ence ; and to its perusal, the first and freshest hour of the 
day was regularly allotted. To it the highest rank was as- 
signed in the system. Its shrine was approached with awe 
and reverence ; and its contents unfolded with that solem- 
nity of feeling which became the oracles of the Most High 
God. 

Besides the regular perusal of the Scriptures, advantage 
has been constantly taken of every favourable opening con- 
nected with any of the topics of the daily lesson— of passing 
events, unexpected surprisals, gentle glows of generous emo- 
tion, spontaneous impulses of gratitude, momentary relaxa- 
tions of prejudice, sudden jets of unpremeditated inquiry 
and all other opportunities which occur freely, naturally, at 
the moment, whoUy unforeseen, and therefore without any 
preparation advantage has been taken of all such occa- 
sions to drop a practical remark,— instil a moral or reli- 
gious principle,— suggest a moral or religious application. 
In this way it has been found that we might daily teach, 
aye, and preach most successfully too, not only by direct and 



573 



formal explanations of the Christian Scriptures ; but often 
with far more visible effect, by occasionally insinuating the 
blessed truth which they contain, in ways so incidental, and 
m forms or modes so inobtrusive as to strike the deeper root, 
in consequence of not raising any gust of opposition to blast 
or consume. Thus was religion made to pervade the entire 
business of the Institution : it became the great animating 
principle of the whole system. It was soon acknowledged 
to be supreme in our estimation, not by forcible attempts 
to push it into ostentatious prominence, but by its being 
seen and felt to exist in real living noiseless influence 
throughout all our teachings, plans, and movements. 

Such pervasion of religious principle was not found to fet- 
ter the communication of useful knowledge; it only deduced 
new inferences, pointed out new applications, and superadded 
a host of new motives to persevere in the acquisition of it. 
It did not cramp the rising freedom of thought; it only from 
time to time caused it to shoot into fairer fields and clearer 
heavens,— aiming at a nobler mark, in expectation of a nobler 
prize. It did not tend to desecrate religion, but to consecrate 
all knowledge. It did not tend to render the cause of philoso- 
phy fanatical. No ; but, by linking faith in the Invisible with 
the evidences of sense, and consociating the revelation of 
Jehovah's Word, with the interpretations of Jehovah's 
works, it tended to banish fanaticism from religion, and 
atheism from philosophy. It did not tend to secularize 
Christianity, but to Christianize all true literature, and all 
true Science; and by baptizing both in the fount itself of 
heavenly purity, send them forth into the world with un- 
sealed vision, and regenerated natures. 

Our plan, therefore, was not first to plant and rear the 
tree of literary and scientific knowledge, and afterwards to 
graft upon it a scion from the stem of Christianity. Such a 
graft would prove but a sickly exotic on an uncongenial 
stock; and, however often renewed, could never flourish 
and produce good fruit. Neither was it our plan to plant 
and rear the tree of religious knowledge, and afterwards, by 
some process of « budding," attempt to force the young 



574 



tendrils of literary and scientific knowledge to sprout there- 
from. Such unnatural forcing could only produce what was 
feeble and worthless, while the violence endured would cause 
the parent trunk to degenerate. Religion and science have 
each its own independent seed; and why should not each be 
sown and take independent root? But though independent in 
their root and growth, why should they be reared as antago- 
nists ?— the one like the Indian manchaneel with its golden 
fruit, so fair to the eye, but noxious to the taste ; and the 
other like the neighbour white-wood, which supplies a balm to 
neutralize its deadly qualities ! Why should they not rather 
be planted and reared in happy and mutual alliance I To ac- 
complish this was our great object. Nor did we attempt in 
vain. A healthy root of each was transferred to a hitherto 
unreclaimed wilderness of heathenism. They were planted 
asunder ; speedily they threw up vigorous shoots, but at 
such a distance as to appear, to the eye of inexperience, in- 
capable of coalescing; and so diminutive, as to make it 
doubtful whether they might not be dwarfed beneath the 
veterans of the wilderness. But they rose with such an 
internal spring of vigour, as to drain off all the disposable 
moisture ; and thus accelerated and hastened on the process 
of natural decay, which had already seized on their aged pre- 
decessors. While they mounted upwards in stately majesty, 
like the trees of pastoral song, they stretched out their spread- 
ing arms till they united in mutual embrace— intertwining 
branch with branch, and bough with bough, and foliage with 
foliage, in such undistinguished union, that the weary tra- 
veller, in enjoying repose under the grateful shade, and im- 
bibing nourishment from the grateful fruit, scarce could tell 
to which of the friendly allies he was most indebted. 

The first six months after the establishment of the Insti- 
tution were characterised by fully more of outward stir and 
excitement and interest than were subsequently manifested. 
Not only were all things new— the discipline, the system of 
tuition, the varied truths communicated— but they were 



575 

alike new to all. It was like the sudden raising of a curtain 
from before the eyes of prisoners in a dungeon,-_the sud- 
den bursting of an unknown world of wonders on the asto- 
nished view. Hence the frequent ejaculations of surprise 
and amazement— the insatiable curiosity-the perfect ra- 
venousness for more knowledge -the boundless, yet aim- 
less longmgs-the alternate utterances of heartfelt delight 
at the discovery of some striking truth, and of heartfelt 
pam at the detection of some fondly cherished error. After- 
wards, of course, there could not be such fulness, and fresh- 
ness, and vividness of outward manifestation. By far the 
greater part would become familiar with every thing. There 
could not be again a whole school of novices;— only a few ad- 
ditions being made from time to time, to fill up the ranks 
and supply the vacated places. Hence they would slide al- 
most imperceptibly into familiarity with the different sub- 
jects, from the swift contagion of constant intercourse with 
their fellows. 

Flushed at first with the exciting novelty of all they said, 
did, and learned, they could not suppress their feelings. Elated 
by their superior attainments, impetuous with youthful ar- 
dour and fearless of consequences, they carried the new light 
which had arisen on their own minds to the bosom of their 
families,— proclaimed its excellencies on the house-tops,— and 
extolled its praises in the street-assemblies of the people. 
With the zeal of proselytes, untempered by the discretion 
of ripened experience, they did not always observe the ne- 
cessary circumspection in their demeanour and style of 
address; or manifest due regard and consideration for the 
feelings of those who still sat in darkness. Even for the in- 
fallible Gurus, and other holy Brahmans, before whom they 
were wont to bow in prostrate submission, their reverence 
was greatly diminished. They would not conceal their gra- 
dual change of sentiment on many vital points. At length, 
their undaunted bearing and freedom of speech, began to 
excite observation; and create a general ferment among the 
staunch adherents of the old faith. The cry of « Hinduism 
m danger" was fairly raised. 



576 



On reaching the school one forenoon at the usual hour, 
(ten o'clock,) we were struck at the contrast to its wonted 
appearance. The entire system had for some time pro- 
gressed with undeviating regularity; and in nothing was 
greater punctuality observed than in the hours of attend- 
ance. Every day the bell was rung precisely at ten ; the 
outer door was immediately shut ; and no boy, if late, was 
admitted. Judge then of our surprise, when, after the bell 
was rung and the outer door shut, we entered the hall of 
the Institution, and found it all but deserted. On the forms 
appropriated to one class only two or three seated; on others, 
one or two ; and on some, none at all ! The number present 
altogether amounted to little more than half-a-dozen I 

What the cause could be, it was impossible to conjecture. 
The few who had made their appearance were interrogated on 
the matter. Instead of replying, one of them, unwrapping 
from the loose folds of his upper vestment a Bengali news- 
paper, came forward; and, pointing to a particular para- 
graph, requested us to read it. It was the Clundnka of 
that morning,— the established organ of the great mass of 
bigoted Hindus, who make it a fundamental article of reli- 
gious duty to uphold all things as they are. The editor, who 
had long distinguished himself as the Coryphoeus of the 
idolatrous unchangeable s, had pounced upon the school ; and 
resolved with one stroke of his formidable pen to crush it 
for ever,— to wipe away the memorial of it from recognised ex- 
istence.' The Institution was there condemned in no measured 
terms. In language the most offensive it was denounced as 
an engine for uprooting Hinduism. The subjects taught 
were held up to reprobation. The very mode of study was 
depicted in a way to prove most grating and galling to the 
feelings of ignorant Hindus. The entire system was ana- 
thematized. The parents who allowed their children to 
attend were threatened with immediate excision from caste 
by the Dharma Shabha, or Holy Assembly of the orthodox ; 
of which the editor himself was the secretary. And finally, 
in case any of the impure or the outcast should still attend, 
and the place for their sakes should be kept open, it was 



577 

earnestly recommended, as a precautionary measure, to do as 
was wont to be done elsewhere in the case of houses known 
to be infected with the plague ; -that is, it was strenuously 
urged, that a yellow flag, or some other distinguishing sig- 
nal should be hung out immediately in front of the Institu- 
tion, to warn all the unwary and ignorant among the sound 
followers of Brahma, that this was the habitation of a moral 
and religious pestilence ! 

This hostile edict operated at first somewhat after the 
manner of a thundering bull from the Vatican in the palmy 
days of Popery. And it cannot be doubted, that, in other 
times, aye, and in hundreds of other places in India, at the 
present time, it might have insured the temporary failure 
of the Institution against which it was directed. As it was, 
all the natives connected with it, seemed to have been seized 
with a sudden panic; and in consequence, almost all the pupils 
were withdrawn in a single day. - Very well," said we, in the 
hearing of the few who had ventured to breast the general 
torrent, " it cannot be helped. To us personally it is a mat- 
ter of little moment. Those who have withdrawn are their 
own greatest enemies ; and must, in the end, find themselves 
the greatest losers. But of this rest assured, that as long 
as there are half-a-dozen to meet here, the Institution shall 
not be shut. It will afford us the greatest pleasure to 
attend daily for their instruction. And the number being 
so small, the advantage to them may be all the greater." 
So saying, we proceeded to the regular duties of the day ; 
and went through all the ordinary routine, just as if no dis- 
aster had overtaken us. The effect of this was, that how- 
ler much the few present had doubted and wavered in the 
norning, they all left, with the determination sealed, to 
>rave all consequences rather than abandon the Institution. 
3y them the report that the Institution was not to be shut, 
vas widely circulated in their respective neighbourhoods; 
aid next day, a few of the deserters ventured to return along 
rith them. 

It soon began to appear that the greater part of those who 
tad placed their sons or wards in the Institution, had not 

o o 



578 



been actuated, in the withdrawal of the pupils, by their own 
spontaneous convictions of duty. Far otherwise. Their 
private views of Hinduism had, from various causes, become 
quite latitudinarian. And to sound the alarm, and mar- 
shal troops in its defence, might appear to them like notes 
of preparation to preserve alive a dying and decaying car- 
cass. But, having no vital principle of truth, they could not 
withstand the least blast of persecution, or endure the threat- 
ened loss of caste with all the degradation, shame and 
ruin, thereby entailed. Hence, not willingly, but by con- 
straint, they were at last overawed into silent acquiescence 
with the prevailing sentiment and decision. When, there- 
fore, the excitement arising from the first panic gradually 
subsided, and no actual steps had been taken against the first 
recusants, one and another gladly found their way back to 
the Institution ; so that in little more than a week, all, with 
three or four exceptions, had returned. 

Not long afterwards another philippic appeared in the 
Chundrika ; followed by a dispersion somewhat similar to 
the former, but more partial and temporary. Another and 
another succeeded at different intervals, in other native 
newspapers besides the Chundrika,— each feebler in its prac- 
tical effect than the preceding ; so that after two or three 
years the most violent tirade that could be published did 
not perceptibly affect the Institution. Denunciations might 
then be fulminated with absolute impunity, which, during the 
first six months, would have caused it to be deserted,— leav- 
ing nothing but bare walls and empty benches. The rea- 
sons were obvious. People had become accustomed to this 
condemnatory language. From the old school of natives i 
was expected to proceed as a matter of course ; and famili- 
arity with such a weapon had blunted its edge, and deprived 
it of the power of inflicting a serious wound. Besides, hun- 
dreds having once cropped the fruit of the tree of Western 
knowledge, and found it pleasant to the sight, sweet to the 
taste, and profitable for nourishment, their experience and con- 
sciousness were not to be annihilated by the decrees of any 
ignorant and imperious dictator. Again, the new illumina- 



579 



tion had enlisted in its favour the names of many Hindus 
of rank, wealth, and influence ; the number of its advocates 
was rapidly increasing; and what was better, from commu- 
nion of sentiment and affinity of pursuit, they were daily 
becoming more united among themselves. Hence the lead- 
ers of the adverse majority, though at first fully determined 
- t0 resort t0 extreme measures, began to shrink from the 
execution of their own decrees. To excommunicate a few 
only of the weakest of the offenders, would be officially 
and formally to proclaim their own conscious impotence; 
to cut off all, powerful and weak together, they seemed to 
dread as likely to cause a breach and schism so extensive 
as to depopulate one portion of the territory of Hinduism, 
and expose the unarmed weakened remnant to eventual dis- 
solution and ruin. But " spiritual thunder-claps" that fall 
innocuous, cease to be feared; and those who continue 
wrathfully to hurl them, come at last to excite only derision 
and contempt. From these and other causes combined, 
even the editor of the Chundrika,— the redoubted champion 
of Hinduism,— the leader and organ of the Dharma Shabha, 
whose first sentence of condemnation emptied the Institu- 
tion,--^ length issued his anathemas, only to be despised by 
a daily increasing number of his own countrymen. In no 
other case, perhaps, in our day, could the picture of the 
ecclesiastical historian be more strikingly realized,—" Me- 
thinks I see a feeble old man, who finds himself despised by 
his children ; and not able to get out of his bed to chastise 
them, as formerly, flings at them any thing he finds under 
his hands, to satisfy his impotent anger ; and, raising his 
voice, loads them with all the imprecations he can devise." 

Amid perpetual modifications in the course and scope of 
study and of discipline, suggested by the ever-varying phe- 
nomena of a rapidly transitionary state,— yet without the 
least change of fundamental principles, or the slightest 
deviation from the original design,— the system continued 
to be conducted throughout the first twelvemonth. During 
this time the minor fluctuations in its developement were 
vastly greater and more frequent than at any subsequent 



580 



period. Still, in the midst of all, there was decided pro- 
gress. The fertilizing tide of improvement was gradually 
spreading over the barren shore,— every partial ebb inits waves 
being invariably succeeded by a greater flow. After the ex- 
perience of six months, the scheme of a complete educational 
course, which might require nine or ten years for its de- 
velopement— with grounds, reasons, and illustrations, occu- 
pying in all about a hundred closely written folio pages,— 
was drawn up and transmitted to the Home Committee. All 
that has since been done, has only been the successive filling 
up of the different parts of this outline. * 



About the termination of the first twelvemonth, it was 
judged desirable to hold an examination of the pupils m a 
central hall on the European side of Calcutta. The leading 
design was to bring the Institution and its objects more 
prominently before the notice of the British residents ; most 
of whom, however willing, could not be expected to visit the 
Institution itself on account of its distance and position in 
the native town. It was not without much deliberation 
and much prayer for guidance from above, that such an ex- 
amination was hazarded at so early a period after the or- 
ganization of the seminary,— a period characterised by so 
many difficulties to be surmounted, so many obstructions to 
be removed. It was felt that, humanly speaking, more 
might depend on this first examination than on any subse- 
quent one— that its success would give a new and mighty 
impulse, while its failure might for years blight all our rising 
but still quivering hopes. Through the overruling Provi- 
dence of God, as the event fully showed, it did prove emi- 
nently successful. 

Dr Bryce, who had already privately visited and examined 
the Institution, kindly agreed to preside at the examina- 
tion; which was attended by a numerous and respectable 
audience of European ladies and gentlemen, besides several 
natives of high rank. Among the visitors were the Vene- 
rable Archdeacon Corrie, and almost the whole body of Com- 



581 



pany's chaplains and missionaries at and about the Pre- 
sidency. From the novelty of the general system pursued, 
and the vivid interest newly excited in favour of the scheme, 
lengthened reports of the entire proceedings were published 
in all the Calcutta newspapers. The following statements and 
remarks are extracted from the three leading daily journals ; 
and considering how widely these differed on all great ques- 
tions of party policy and religion, their concurrent testimo- 
nies in favour of the examination, must exhibit the broad seal 
of authenticity. No documents could possibly be furnished 
possessing higher historical value. 

The India Gazette, after various preliminary remarks, 
thus proceeds :— " The boys of the different classes respec- 
tively, were rigidly and minutely questioned on whatever 
portions they had learnt of the English Eeader, published 
by the School-Book Society ; Pearson's Dialogues on Geo- 
graphy and Astronomy ; Outlines of Ancient History, from 
the Creation to the Augustan Age, by Archdeacon Corrie ; 
and the leading parts of early Sacred History, as detailed 
in Genesis, and parts of the Gospels. They were questioned 
and cross-questioned in the most intricate manner possible ; 
and their ready and correct answers evinced not only a re- 
collection of what they had read, but a perfect knowledge of 
its meaning in every way. The boys in the more advanced 
classes readily formed a substantive from an adjective, and 
vice versa,— and those in the head class, (who have all got 
through the Parts of Speech and rules of Syntax,) unhesitat- 
ingly stated the primitive of any terms ; and particularized 
all its derivatives, connectives, and compounds. They also 
translated or explained their lessons when required in the 
Bengali language ; or expressed the import in English by 
definition or example. The examination concluded about 
two o'clock ; and all the visitors who witnessed it appeared 
highly gratified with the result." 

The Bengal Hurkuru, after briefly noticing the rise, 
progress, and design of the Institution, continues his remarks 
as follows :— " Judging from the examination held yesterday, 
the system of instruction is admirably adapted to teach chil- 



582 



dren the true use of language, viz., that of being employed 
as signs of ideas, embracing at the same time in its opera- 
tion, an unremitting exercise of the understanding ;— as a 
full and entire sense and meaning of the sentence read, even 
to the parts of speech and grammatical construction of it, the 
pupil is taught to comprehend and explain. This he is taught 
to do, as soon as he can read lessons in monosyllables. This 
important particular in the education of children has been 
heretofore too much neglected ; while parents and teachers 
have been contented with mere mechanical reading, with the 
mere sound and articulation of words, without paying atten- 
tion to the information which the young mind may acquire 
from them." After furnishing a specimen of the mode of ex- 
amination, he thus proceeds :— " It is not necessary to enter 
into all the minutiae and various forms of interrogation by 
which an ingenious instructor might employ the under- 
standing of his pupil, as the above will afford a glimpse of 
what the system is, and shows that the pupil proceeds in 
substantial acquirements, exactly in proportion to the ex- 
pansion of his understanding. The pupils were called up in 
classes to the number of eight, and acquitted themselves to 
the satisfaction, if not to the admiration, of the considerable 
number of ladies and gentlemen present ; particularly in the 
answers which they gave touching some material facts in the 
history of the Christian religion, as well as regarding that 
religion itself. Perhaps it would be better if a, peculiar sys- 
tem of theology were not inculcated— if that were left to be 
acquired or rejected by a maturer understanding. Never- 
theless we do not hesitate to say, that schools established 
upon this plan, are the most direct way of enlightening and 
evangelizing this country. 1 ' 

The John Bull, after some introductory remarks, thus 
testifies :— " The singularity, and we are glad to be able to 
add the success, of Mr D.'s mode of instilling instruction, 
had for some time past attracted considerable attention from 
those who had visited him in his class-room in Chitpore- 
road ; and the result, as proved by a more public examina- 
tion, was looked to with not a little curiosity by many into- 



583 



rested in the progress of native education. The Institution 
has only been in activity for a few months ; but during that 
time it seems to have proved beyond doubt, that the exer- 
cise of the understanding, to the extent of comprehending 
accurately and fully what they read, may be conjoined with 
the more mechanical labour, even in very young pupils. 
The mode by which Mr D. attempts to accomplish this most 
desirable object is very simple ; and consists in putting the 
sentence, read by his pupils, into every possible shape, so as 
to thoroughly sift out its meaning, in all the different phases 
it can be made to present ; but it is a mode which, to be 
perfectly understood, ought to be seen in practical operation. 
We think it might be most advantageously adopted in other 
seminaries of native education. It has one most powerful re- 
commendation to public notice,— that it interests the boys 
in what they are taught in a manner the most lively and gra- 
tifying; and without fagging or wearying their attention, 
keeps them all alive and on the alert at the same moment. 
It therefore obviates one great objection to the old system 
of education, that while one boy was undergoing examina- 
tion, the others were too often inattentive and idle. The 
examination on Friday was altogether gratifying, and the 
progress of the pupils, considering how short has been their 
attendance at the Institution, we may say without exagge- 
ration, wonderful. But the most interesting part of the ex- 
hibition was held, by common consent of the visitors, to have 
been the examination of the highest class in the history of 
the Bible, and the connection between it and the leading 
truths and doctrines of the Old and New Testament. It is 
the fashion of the present day to teach, that no peculiar sys- 
tem of theology should be instilled into the minds of youth, 
but all left to be received or rejected by a maturer under- 
standing. We deprecate such doctrine in the strongest 
terms. We maintain that from youth upward, religious 
knowledge should be afforded to them : and how this is to 
be done, without conveying it according to some sect of 
theology or another, we are at a loss to perceive ; and those 
who maintain the doctrine are at no great pains to inform 



584 



as. The views of Christianity, which the higher classes of 
Mr D/s Institution have been taught, are those undoubtedly 
that are to be found in the orthodox standards of the Church 
of which he promises to be so useful a missionary ; and, we 
believe, there were many of the visitors present, who listened 
to the questions of the master and the answers of the scho- 
lars with the more pleasure that they were reminded of the 
humble parish school at home, where 4 a peculiar system of 
theology 1 is inculcated from the earliest dawn of the intellect ; 
and where the fruits, under the blessing of God, have been 
a pious and a moral population. The seminary of education, 
at which religion, in some form or other, stands not at the 
threshold to receive the pupil, ought not to be countenanced 
or supported by any wise Government or any pious man. 
The idea of bringing up youths in scientific and intellectual 
knowledge, while their minds are all along left a blank, as 
to religious impressions, until they can choose a faith for 
themselves, appears to us at once the most absurd, and dan- 
gerous crotchet, that ever entered into the heads of men 
calling themselves Philosophers, Statesmen, and Legislators. 
We are persuaded Mr D. is on the right road to attain the 
truly worthy and benevolent object of his Mission ; and we 
would encourage him to persevere, as he has begun, in all 
manner of holy boldness ; proving himself 4 a workman that 
need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.' 
At the close of the examination, Dr Bryce addressed a few 
words to the scholars of the Institution, encouraging them 
to perseverance in their studies." 

The great and unexpected success wherewith Divine Pro- 
vidence was pleased to accompany this examination, gave a 
mighty impulse to all our future labours. The favourable 
opinion so decidedly expressed by influential members of the 
British community, reacted powerfully on the native mind 
at large ; in the way of conciliating prejudice, inspiring confi- 
dence, and securing a more hearty and general co-operation. 
The interest manifested on the part of so many magnates of 
the ruling caste in the progress and welfare of the pupils, pour- 
ed fresh animation and vigour into all their onward endeavours 



585 



after the attainment of theEnglish language,and the incalcul- 
able wealth of knowledge, human and divine, that is treasured 
up in it. In a word, to the no small delight and surprise 
of the founder, the general impression then produced, at 
once dragged the infant seminary from a humble obscurity, 
and thrust it forth into public favour and notoriety— putting 
to flight all floating misconceptions and suspicions on the 
part of the more pious members of the Christian communion, 
—dissipating the ill omens and auguries of the enemies of 
religious instruction,— drowning the vehement clamours of 
the more bigoted portion of the native community, amid 
the full blaze of a sudden popularity, which ushered it back 
amongst them with a new status assigned to it, as well as a 
commanding frontier-position among the educational Institu- 
tions of the metropolis. On the reopening of the seminary, the 
numbers of new applications for admission was more than 
trebled. Additional accommodation was provided. Every 
year thereafter, the character and credit of the system were 
progressively augmented, in the estimation both of natives 
and Europeans. Elementary tuition was gradually advanced 
into an academical or collegiate course, somewhat similar to 
that pursued at one of our Scottish Universities. The five 
who entered on the day of its first commencement, have since 
swoln into an average attendance of eight hundred ! And the 
Governor-General, the fount of all power, honour, and influ- 
ence, at length did homage to it by publicly proclaiming in 
the face of all India, that it had produced « unparalleled 
results." 



Here, however, we must pause. Into farther details re- 
lative to the working of the educational part of the system 
we cannot at present enter. To its immediate and antici- 
pated results, we can only refer in the most general terms. 

Of these results some are direct, some indirect. The lat- 
ter, though usually least thought of, and incapable of being 
adequately represented, may often prove, in their ultimate 
tendencies, even more valuable than those which are direct 



586 



and visible to every eye. To this particular subject allusion 
has already been made in an address before the General 
Assembly. Referring to the Calcutta Institution, it was re- 
marked as follows : — 

" Besides its direct and immediate results in destroying, in 
the minds of hundreds, the combined powers of ignorance 
and prejudice, idolatry and superstition, and substituting 
the ennobling principles of true literature, science, and 
Christian theology instead,— look at the number of pro- 
blems, fraught with the most momentous bearings on the 
future destinies of India, which it has helped triumphantly 
to solve. 

" Was it nothing, for example, by means of the unrivalled 
success with which God had been pleased to crown it, to 
have demolished the bugbear of alleged impracticability, as 
regards the attendance of respectable natives, for a series 
of years, on a Christian Institution, — and to have confound- 
ed the sophistical reasonings of hollow expediency, on the 
score of non-interference with the religious prejudices of the 
natives ?— Nothing, to have paralysed the arm of opposition 
—to have satisfied scepticism itself,— and to have converted 
the suspicions of craven cowardice into unbounded confi- 
dence ^—Nothing, to have given a higher tone to the senti- 
ments of many of the most influential British residents, on 
the essential constituents of sound education,— to have in- 
fused a new and better spirit into some of the older systems, 

to have generated the desire of remodelling some that 

were beginning to become effete ?— Nothing, to have given 
such an accelerative impetus to the cause of native instruc- 
tion, that scores of seminaries have already been establish- 
ed, which otherwise would never have seen the light of day,* 

* « How numerous? remarks Mr Trevelyan, in an address to the friends 
of Education in India on the influence of example, "how numerous are the 
instances in which visitors to the General Assembly's celebrated Academy 
have caught the spirit of the plan ; and been induced, on their return to 
their respective districts, to form the nucleus of similar Institutions ! " 

Besides these, there are now, as recorded in the Committee's Reports, 
several Branch-Schools, in immediate connection with the Central Insti- 



587 



—and to have provided many of these new seminaries, with 
duly qualified teachers, that have received an intellectual, 
moral, and religious training in your central Institution? 
If, as a learned gentleman opposite, f and zealous friend of 
every Christian enterprise, lately remarked, with admirable 
point and truth :— If " the schoolmaster be the school 
in other words, if the minds of the pupils, faithfully reflect- 
ing their master's image, must ever be cast in the form and 
mould of his opinions :— Who can estimate,— who can suffi- 
ciently magnify the amount of wholesome influence which 
the Assembly's Missionary Institution, viewed as a grand 
Normal Seminary for the training of teachers, is likely to 
exert on the future destinies of India I Once more,— Was 
it nothing, in the metropolis of such an empire as that of 
British India, in consequence of the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness which your Institution has produced, to have 
succeeded in convincing certain timid alarmists in high 
places, that, as Christianity has never taught rulers to op- 
press, so will it never teach subjects to rebel ?— And to have 
given a visibility of demonstration to the aphorism of the 
ancient apologist, that then only is a Government most sure 
that it exceeds in friends, when it most surely knows that it 
exceeds in Christians ?— In the name of reason and common 
sense, we ask, Was all this nothing, as regards the ultimate 
regeneration of the people of India ! * 

Another indirect result of a momentous character, viewed 
as preparatory towards a great ultimate change, must not be 
left unnoticed. After a few years attendance at the Insti- 
tution, the young men acquire sufficient boldness and confi- 



tution, Calcutta. The largest and most advanced of these is the Semi- 
nary at Taki, about fifty miles E of Calcutta. The distinguishing circum- 
stance connected with this Seminary is, that it is supported chiefly by the 
Zemindars of the place,— who contribute between two and three hundred 
pounds annually towards its maintenance. May not the enlightened liber- 
ality of these Hindu proprietors, Kalinath Roy Chaudri, and Baykon- 
tonath Roy Chaudri,— put to shame many a Christian proprietor in this 
land ? 



t Mr Colquhoun of Killermont. 



588 



dence to speak out freely and undisguisedly in the very 
bosom of their families. Within hundreds of domestic cir- 
cles—circles to which at present the European missionary can 
find no access,— conversations and discussions are thus car- 
ried on night after night, on the subject of Hinduism and 
Christianity. In this and in other ways there is a leaven 
gradually diffusing throughout the mass. There is a gentle 
and insensible process carrying on ; a process yearly widen- 
ing in its extent ; a process of loosening, sapping, and un- 
dermining ; the effects of which, though as yet not patent 
on the surface of society, and consequently not visible to 
the outward eye,— will assuredly come forth in a stream of 
influential manifestation, in the day and crisis of India's 
great deliverance. 

The immediate and direct results are very palpable. As 
already stated, there is not a branch of true literature or 
science which does not furnish weapons to demolish Hinduism. 
Let any one seriously peruse the second chapter of this 
work ; and without any further illustration, he must be sa- 
tisfied that our chronology and history, our geography and 
astronomy, our mental and moral philosophy, brought to 
bear on so stupendous a system of error, must wrench it up 
by the very foundations. This, accordingly, we find to be 
the fact. When even the minutest portion of true know- 
ledge, derived from whatever source, once fairly obtains an 
entrance into a mind wholly dark, bewildered, and lost in 
mazes of error,— exposing its deformities and shaking its 
confidence in some established principles and practices,— 
the work of improvement is usually half accomplished. The 
curiosity is strongly excited, still farther to search, examine, 
and inquire. As the mind advances in its inquiries, change 
succeeds change :— every new effect becomes not only the 
earnest, but the prolific source of successive improvement,— 
and every unexpected discovery seems only to add new 
fuel to desires which begin to burn,— and will burn inextin- 
guishably. In vain do the bigoted adherents of " things as 
they are," prefer the clamorous charges of ingratitude to 
holy teachers, irreverence towards deified ancestors, and mi- 



i 



589 



piety towards the gods. Such outcries only excite compas- 
sion and provoke a smile. 

And be it never forgotten, that while a process of de- 
struction is thus advancing as regards Hinduism, there is a 
simultaneous process of upbuilding in the knowledge and 
principles of the Christian faith. From the first, the truths 
of God's word are habitually inculcated. Gradually the 
Bible itself is read ; its sacred lessons prayerfully perused ; 
and its message of salvation pressed home upon the under- 
standing, the heart, and the conscience. The evidences, 
external and internal, of our most holy faith, with all its re- 
vealed doctrines in their divine order and harmony, are sys- 
tematically unfolded. Of truth in every department, the 
pupils who rise to the higher classes, obtain a firmer and 
more intelligent grasp than young men of the same age 
usually do in the best conducted of our home institutions. 
With this circumstance, all strangers are particularly struck. 
The Rev. Mr Malcolm, of the United States, the talented 
author of a volume of missionary travels in the East, thus 
writes of the young men in our Institution :— « I examined 
several classes in ancient and modern history, mathematics, 
astronomy, and Christianity ; and have never met classes 
showing a more thorough knowledge of the books they had 
studied. Nearly all of the two upper classes are convinced 
of the truth of the Gospel ; and went over the leading evi- 
dences in a manner that, I am sure, few professors of reli- 
gion in our country can do." One reason of this is obvious. 
Their minds being prepossessed with a system of error be- 
lieved to be divine, no opposing truth on any subject will 
be received till it is first sifted, examined, and viewed in 
all its forms, bearings, and relations. There is an antece- 
dent reluctance on the score of interest and feeling and pre- 
judice, to relinquish long- cherished error; there is an ante- 
cedent aversion to entertain any parallel hostile truth. Ac- 
cordingly, when the error has been supplanted from its in- 
trenchment in the soul by the introduction and lodgment of 
some correspondent truth— we may be sure that the latter 
has not been embraced till it has forced for itself a way into 



590 



the mind through the blaze of resistless evidence. As re- 
gards Christianity in particular, there is a new species of 
evidence to the awakening mind of a Hindu, the overwhelm- 
ing force of which we cannot in this land fully realize. It is 
this :— In proportion as the pupil advances in the knowledge 
of true literature and science, in the same proportion does he 
find the citadel of Hinduism crumbling around him in all 
directions. On the contrary, the farther he advances in the 
knowledge of true literature and science, the more thorough- 
ly does he find the evidences, the facts, the doctrines of 
Christianity confirmed, illustrated, and vindicated. There 
is thus made to rush through the eye of the understanding, 
a vivid and almost sensible perception of the falsehood of 
Hinduism, and the truth of Christianity. 

At length, the most decided symptoms of at least mental 
renovation begin to appear. The disenthralled spirit 
seems to labour for words to express the feeling of joy at 
the thought of deliverance from the prison-house of ages,— 
the sensation of astonishment at the low and abject condi- 
tion of the surrounding multitude,— the earnest longing to 
assert the liberty of conscience and the authority of reason. 

Pantheism must be denounced,— and Idolatry, with all 
its concomitants of ceremonial form and cruel rites and abo- 
minable worship. The Infinite, Eternal Spirit, is no longer 
vaguely blended and confounded with the materialism of a 
created universe,— and no forms of nature or of art, ani- 
mate or inanimate, will be invested with his incommuni- 
cable attributes. The spotless holiness of His character 
no longer be tarnished by .the ascription of deeds which 
would indicate the consummation of all possible depravity, 
—nor will His infinite wisdom and goodness be insulted by 
forms of worship, which would prove that the souls of ra- 
tional and accountable beings had become shrivelled into 
some new species of s piritual existence, whose distinguishing 
characteristic was the annihilation of all conscience and 
intelligence. 

The last refuges of Polytheism no longer afford any 
shelter. They are the beacons of the soul's continued 



591 



degradation, and must be destroyed. Enlightened rea- 
son will not tolerate such evasions and defences as 
these— that images are worshipped as gods, merely be- 
cause of the difficulty of fixing the mind on the Supreme 
Being— that the image is only animated by a god at certain 
seasons, and after the performance of a peculiar ceremony 
of Divine appointment-that as, to the palace of an earthly 
monarch, there are various ways of access, and the pre- 
sence-chamber of majesty is to be entered solely through 
the instrumentality of ministers, so, in like manner, may 
different modes of worship lead to the heavenly mansion, the 
peculiar abode of deity; and the gods may be worshipped 
simply with the view of enabling men to approach the Su- 
preme Brahm-that as one must know the alphabet previ- 
ous to his entering on the study of a language, so must rites 
and ceremonies be observed till the mind has become pure, 
and capable of practising the spiritual mode of worship 
which is agreeable to Divine wisdom- that the knowledge 
and worship of Brahm, and the meditation on gods pos- 
sessed with shape, being, both of them occupations of the 
mind, they must, as such, be alike conducive to the obtain- 
ing of salvation- that it is enough if the god selected for 
worship be regarded as the author of the world ; and even if 
not regarded as such, it is still enough if he be worshipped 
m faith— that all the gods are in reality but one being 
which only appeared in different shapes— that what is writ- 
ten concerning the birth, death, lusts, anger, rage, envy 
strife, factions, and fascinations of the gods, is mere illusion 
-and finally, that whatever objections may be raised against 
the worship of images, with all its accompanying rites it is 
impossible to believe, and impious to assert, that practices 
which are expressly required by the Shastras, and have 
been handed down by tradition from sages and gods, can be 
charged with error, or betray the soul into sin ! 

The destruction of Superstition, so far as it owes its ex- 
istence and its power to ignorance, is found to be coeval 
with that of idolatry. Beings awakened to sober reflection 
will not readily believe that men,~whose knowledge does not 



592 

appear to reach to minor passing events ; whose power is 
not seen to extend to themselves or their relations ; and 
whose character, though reputed to be that of a saint, is 
more than doubtful,— can at the mere bidding of the will un- 
fold the past, reveal the future; and, by charms and incanta- 
tions, enrich the poor, exalt the feeble, restore the sick, 
raise the dead, and arrest the course of the heavenly bodies. 
The mind will not, as formerly, be often haunted with the 
fear of imaginary beings, or filled with harrowing ideal 
phantoms. The dread of treading on a charm which may 
communicate disease, or cause misfortune, will not agitate 
a man in crossing the street, neither will the evil sight of 
another be enough to insinuate poison into the most whole- 
some food. The fall of a feather, a sneeze, the sound of a 
reptile, will not be believed to render an undertaking unsuc- 
cessful ; and the waiting for the arrival of a lucky day or 
hour, or the disappearance of an unlucky constellation, will 
not be allowed to interrupt business, and encourage indo- 
lent or vicious habits. 

Simultaneous with the destruction of idolatry and super- 
stition, will be the abolition of Caste. When the reign of 
the gods is at an end, the Divine origin of caste is no longer 
held as a sacred verity and disbelief in its divinity must 
break the sinew of its strength. In the order of events, it 
neither precedes nor follows the overthrow of idolatry by 
any measurable interval :— both fall together. When we 
hear the assertion made and reiterated, that we must anni- 
hilate caste ere we can expect to sap the foundations of 
idolatry, we suspect that it is dictated by the same wisdom 
which would direct us carefully to separate the cement 
from the walls of a building about to be levelled with the 
ground. Idolatry and superstition are like the stones and 
brick of a huge fabric, and caste is the cement which per- 
vades and closely binds the whole. Let us, then, under- 
mine the common foundation, and both tumble at once, and 
form a common ruin. In India, one class of the community 
is supremely interested in the stability of idolatry and its 
endless rites ; because from these arise their Divine honours* 



593 



their paramount influence, their unfailing aggrandizement. 
Now, an abject ignorance is the vital soul of idolatry ; which, 
in its turn, by constantly occupying the thoughts, and 
moulding the actions of men, renders ignorance an evil un- 
felt. To secure the continuance of this ignorance — for 
ignorance can never oppose its own continuance — in a regu- 
lar, fixed, and systematic form, society was divided and sub- 
divided into numberless classes or castes ; to be confined im- 
passably to one defined profession, and excluded as impass- 
ably from all knowledge, beyond that which costly gifts might 
occasionally extort from the Brahmans, " the mouths of the 
gods." It is thus that the institution of caste extends to all 
the parts of a living idolatry; fixes each in an unchangeable 
position ; and cements the whole into one close and compact 
body. And it is from unacquaintance with the nature of this 
fact alone, that any one could expect the separate destruc- 
tion of parts so mutually binding, so closely interwoven, that 
wisdom proclaims, " They must be destroyed together, or not 
at all." But destroyed together, in many cases, they have al- 
ready been. The same cause inevitably proves the ruin of both. 
The same light of sound knowledge, which exposes the utter 
folly and irrationality of idolatry and superstition, does at 
one and the same time expose the partiality, the cruelty, 
and the injustice of that artificial system which is framed 
to uphold them ; and at one and the same time drag from 
their long concealment the arrogance, the ignorance, the 
mercenary motives, and oppressive measures of the men 
whose honour and glory depend on the vigorous maintenance 
of the present . wretched state of things. In other words, 
the cruel, anti-social, tyrannical dominion of caste, is made 
to be known, abhorred, and trampled under foot— with an , 
indignation which is not lessened by the reflection, that over 
ages and generations without number it hath already 
swayed undisturbed the sceptre of a ruthless despotism, 
which ground men down to the condition of irrationals ; 
and strove to keep them there, with the rigour of a merci' 
less necessity. 

With the overthrow of idolatry and superstition and 
p P 



594 

caste, it is clear that the greatest part of the manners, cus- 
toms,' and habits of those most enlightened must undergo a 
total revolution. When the number of the enlightened shall 
be greatly multiplied, society must, in fact, be resolved into 
its original elements. It is not in India as in those countries 
where religion and its rites are carefully distinguished from 
forms of business, and from the practices and habits of ordi- 
nary life. There the whole are blended in one undistinguished 
mass. Scarcely an action of life can be named which is not 
amalgamated with some religious ingredient. There is no 
exemption for the most frivolous. Every thing connected 
with the forms of buildings, utensils, dress, ornaments, meals, 
ablutions, &c, is associated with some impression or mo- 
tive or observance of a religious nature. Hence, the un- 
changeableness of Hindu customs. Being founded on the 
basis, or accompanied with the sanctioned rites of religion, 
they necessarily partake of its divine and inviolable autho- 
rity. But once let the foundation be undermined, and the 
whole fabric must crumble into fragments. When the charm 
of immemorial usage and ancestorial tradition is dissolved, 
and supplanted by the light of knowledge, then must expire 
all the noxious practices which flow therefrom. Accord- 
ingly shame and confusion are ever found to seize the hearts 
of all who receive an enlightened education, because of the 
iniquitous practice by which the female half of the teeming 
myriads of India —instead of enjoying the light of day, 
breathing the free air of heaven, softening the asperities of 
life, awakening the varied tendernesses of nature, and diffus- 
ing an unperceived but mellow influence throughout society, 
—have been cruelly immured, sunk, degraded, brutalized— 
fitter companions for the brutes that perish, than helpmates 
of him who was formed in God's image. When the chains 
of caste are broken, then are abandoned all the peculiar 
practices which result therefrom such, for example, as the 
common practice of collecting dust from the feet of a Brah- 
man, and applying it as a specific for all maladies. When 
the present mythology is pronounced a monstrous and ex- 
travagant fable, then must terminate the peculiar practices 



595 



lhat flow therefrom such, for example, as the practice at 
certain seasons, of covering the body with a portion of earth 
conveyed from spots said to be consecrated by the actions 
and battles of the gods. When local deities cease to be ac- 
knowledged, then do cease the peculiar practices which pro- 
ceed therefrom ;-such, for example, as the practice of pil- 
grimage to holy shrines, by which multitudes annually 
suffer pain and weariness, or famish by the way, or lie un- 
tried on a distant shore. When the Ganges is no longer 
esteemed as a goddess, then must be abolished the practices 
of resorting to perform ablution in its muddy waters ; and of 
violating the tenderest sympathies of nature, by hurrying 
the helpless sick and aged to perish prematurely on its 
sacred banks. But why enlarge or particularize ? The 
great law of the moral and physical world is, that a change 
in the cause must introduce a corresponding change in the 
effect. Hence it happens that, with the downfall of idolatry, 
superstition, and caste, all the countless habits, manners,' 
customs, and practices of the educated Hindus become 
entirely changed or greatly modified. 

Then does mental freedom become the parent of a restless 
inquisitiveness ; and this, again, insures an onward acces- 
sion of augmenting knowledge. Nor is the knowledge con- 
fined wholly to theory. The records of authentic history 
supply the reforming sons of the East with lessons and 
examples, to warn and instruct. Comparisons begin to be 
instituted between the political, civil, and religious institu- 
tions of different countries ; with the view of ultimately re- 
modelling their own. Plans begin to be contemplated for 
extending encouragement to the elegant arts and where 
can the naturalist find a more splendid field for his curious 
and useful researches ; or the economist for applying his les- 
sons of practical wisdom ? The sciences begin to be admired 
and cultivated for their beauty and utility,— for the admir- 
able revelation they afford of the Creator s workmanship,— 
and for the powers they enable man to wield over the ele- 
ments. Resolutions begin to be formed towards applying 
the principles of science to the purposes of life,— to improve- 



596 



nients in the mechanical arts which contribute to the various 
necessities, and conveniences, and comforts of social well- 
being to plans for facilitating the intercourse between the 
provinces, and calling forth the inexhaustible resources of 
that highly favoured land. Who that knows aught of the 
present state of the people of India, can deny that these are 
gigantic changes which have already begun to be manifested 
in the minds of individuals ? What real philanthropist will 
not glory in adding new strength to any power which can 
accomplish them ! And if one of the most effective powers be 
that of an enlightened Christian education,— as experience 
amply proves it to be,— may not he blush to style himself 
the friend of man who would breathe a whisper of opposition 
to its happy influence \ 

Still, it will be said by the pious Christian that all this 
is not enough. So say we. However cheering and momen- 
tous be the mental revolution now glanced at, it falls vastly 
short of the aspirations and designs of Christian philan- 
thropy. These aim at something more than intellectual im- 
provement and external reformation. These aim supremely 
at the conversion of lost souls to God. This is the grand 
end towards which all our labours must ever be directed. 
To its furtherance and accomplishment all our educational 
plans and expedients must ever be rendered subservient. 
By the vigorous prosecution of the means now described, it 
is in our power, in humble dependence on God's ordinary 
providence, to root out the monstrous errors of Hinduism, 
and to substitute for them true literature and true science. 
Yea more ;— it is in our power to build up the knowledge 
of Christian evidence and doctrine in the minds of hundreds, 
so that these become firmly persuaded of the truth of both • 
—in a word, become intellectually Christianized. Beyon 
this the use of ordinary means will not carry us. But I 
yond this there must be a progress, else our prayers mu 
remain unanswered, our primary design unrealized. V 
want to behold not merely intellectual Christians, but lea 
Christians not merely individuals intelligently convinced 
of the general truth of Christianity, but vitally awakened 



597 



to discern and experience its special suitableness and adap- 
tation to their own case, as guilty and polluted transgressors 
of God's holy law. 

Now, all the necessary knowledge we can, and are bound, 
by every lawful means, to communicate to the intellect! 
But we cannot render it efficaciously operative in impress- 
ing and renewing the heart. No; as soon might we 
strive to roll back the great rivers to their springheads 
m the lofty mountains ; or force the tides of ocean to retire 
within the caverns of earth ; or command the sun to retrace 
his course in the firmament of heaven ! Savingly to change 
one heart is wholly beyond the power of all human, of all 
created capacity. To whom, then, does the supernatural 
power belong ? The volume of inspiration, the testimony of 
God's chosen people in every age, with one concurrent voice 
proclaim, that such a power is the exclusive possession, and its 
exercise the sole, the unalienable prerogative of the Almighty 
Spirit of all grace. What, then, have we to do \ Have we 
no duty to discharge, as instruments, connected with the con- 
version of lost sinners ? No duty !-We have an all-important 
duty to perform. It is, in the first place, our part, by every 
legitimate measure, to bring the knowledge of salvation into 
immediate juxtaposition with the understandings and the 
hearts of men. It is, in the second place, our part and our 
privilege to wrestle in prayer, that the Holy Spirit may 
exert his gracious influence in opening the understanding, 
softening the heart, and rendering the knowledge of the' 
truth savingly influential. It is our part to make known 
the glad tidings, that for sinners of the race of Adam a 
Saviour hath been provided, a Surety found, the blood of 
the Everlasting Covenant shed,-that the sins of the 
most flagitious offenders may be pardoned, though these 
should be numberless as the sand on the sea-shore, and in 
magnitude exceed the great mountains ; though the cry of 
them should reach unto heaven, and the guilt of them point 
downwards to the blackness of darkness, which fills with 
horror the prison-house of condemned spirits. It is our 
duty and our privilege to look to the influence of Omni- 



598 



potent grace as that which alone can secure for the joyous 
message a believing reception. If, then, in our Educational 
Institution we have succeeded, through the Divine support, 
in imparting to hundreds the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and 
Him crucified ;— if we have waited upon our God in an atti- 
tude of devout, persevering, importunate prayerfulness for 
His efficacious blessing ;— what more could we, as humble and 
unworthy instruments, attempt to achieve? Nought of 
which we can be aware. If we have diligently endeavoured 
to discharge our part,— though in weakness, and with much 
fear and trembling,— what could we do but leave the result 
with God \ If we have planted and watered, what could we 
do but look to God for the increase \ Suppose, then, we had 
not been favoured with a single case of real conversion, we 
should still be satisfied that, in communicating the knowledge 
of salvation, we were walking in the prescribed path of duty; 
—satisfied that we were under an imperative obligation to 
persevere unswervingly in the same path ; fortified by the full 
assurance of hope, that the Lord, in His own good season, 
would cause the seed sown in a well cultivated soil to fruc- 
tify, bud and blossom, and bear fruits for immortality. 

But, blessed be God, we have not been left to a mere as- 
surance of hope, however strong and however well founded. 
In the unsearchable riches of His grace He hath been pleased 
to refresh His weary heritage with the transporting spectacle 
of souls converted to the Saviour. We have not as yet to 
report of great multitudes pricked to the heart and crying- 
out, " What must we do to be saved \ "—but we have to re- 
port of conversions super excellent in quality. In imme- 
diate connection with the instructions conveyed in our Insti- 
tution, individuals have been led openly to renounce their 
idols, openly to embrace the Lord Jesus as their God and 
Saviour, under circumstances the most appalling to mere flesh 
and blood. It has often been alleged, that there never has 
been a sincere conversion among the heathens of India !— 
No sincere conversion !— How can sincerity be most effec- 
tually proved to exist I How, except by the number and extent 
of the sacrifices to which individuals will submit in defence 



599 



of their profession ! It is by such a test that the sincerity 
of apostles and martyrs in every age has been most tri- 
umphantly vindicated. Now we assert, that in the Calcutta 
Institution there have been conversions that will abide the 
application of such a test, in its most unmeasured severity. 
Individuals have been led to cleave to Jesus in spite of per- 
secution. They have been confined, chained, and cruelly 
beaten; they have been driven to relinquish father and 
mother, and all endearments of home ; they have been con- 
strained to submit to the loss of substance and hereditary 
possession ; they have gladly submitted to the alternative of 
being prepared to undergo a slow death by poison, rather than 
abandon the cause and cross of Christ. « Father," exclaim- 
ed one of these youthful heroes when threatened to be put to 
death secretly without witnesses, « Father, I am as determin- 
ed as you are ; you may kill my body, but you cannot kill my 
soul; and this I tell you, that if ever I am at liberty, nothing 
will prevent me from being baptized ? " 

Who can lay any thing to the charge of such converts ? 
If there was not sincerity here, we despair of any criterion 
whereby it can be tested. Suppose the thousands in a 
Christian land who declaim about the mercinariness of 
Hindu converts were subjected to a similar test, how would 
they abide the trial ? Ah, if the thousands, and tens of 
thousands who make a goodly profession, who have been 
baptized into the name of Jesus, who frequent his ordi- 
nances, who partake of the emblems of his broken body and 
shed blood, were made to pass through so fiery a crucible- 
threatened with bonds and imprisonment, with loss of tempo- 
ral possessions and cruel death,— how few would pass un- 
scathed through the flames of so terrible a persecution ! 
Alas, alas, how huge the proportion of vile dross, of 
which the aggregate would be found to consist .'—and how 
small the portion of fine gold !— Overcome by the most re- 
sistless evidence, we must then believe that the cases now 
alluded to have been cases of real indubitable conversion. 
The individuals have already received an excellent educa- 
tion ; and some of them are at this moment still farther pro- 



600 



secuting their studies with the view of being eventually 
ordained as preachers of the everlasting Gospel to their be- 
nighted countrymen !— When once such an event, which 
forms the very consummation of the educational department 
of the system, shall be realized ; the native preachers will 
be settled along with native teachers in favourable localities. 
There, will both teachers and preachers labour in commu- 
nicating the Gospel to old and young,— by every variety of 
mode and method which past experience may suggest, or 
the peculiarities of the case may demand. By the reiter- 
ated and simultaneous instillation of Gospel principles into 
the minds both of the juvenile and adult population within 
manageable, because circumscribed localities, the founda- 
tions of idolatry will be gradually sapped and undermin- 
ed. The leaven of Divine truth will be insensibly working 
into the very heart of the corrupt mass ; inducing a progres- 
sive fermentation ; and preparing for that revolution in the 
popular mind, which usually heralds the most decisive tri- 
umphs of the Cross. 

From all that has been stated, the general bearings of the 
educational department, on the ultimate evangelization of 
India, must be evident, without any recapitulation. In a 
thousand indirect- ways, it is effectually introducing and 
widely disseminating the elements of dissolution, the seeds 
of change, the principles of renovation, into the ancient sys- 
tem of Hinduism— all, all preparatory to the establishment 
of the universal dominion of the Christian faith. In a thou- 
sand direct ways, it is leading to the conversion of lost sin- 
ners ; and especially to the qualifying of a body of native 
agents who, as teachers and preachers of the Word of Life, 
are destined to go forth in the name and strength of the 
Lord, sowing the indestructible seed, which, watered by the 
dew of heavenly grace, shall one day be reaped in a harvest 
of redeemed souls— redeemed through the blood of Im- 
manuel from the bondage of sin, the dishonours of the grave, 
and the horrors of perdition. 

Let us then persevere as we have begun. Let us be instant 
in season and out of season, in making known the Saviours 



601 



name. Let us strive directly and indirectly in winning souls 
to Christ. Let us pray without ceasing for a more copious 
effusion of the Spirit's influences on the labourers and their 
labours. Let us entreat the Lord especially in behalf of the 
hundreds who are mentally emancipated from the yoke of 
ages, who are intellectually persuaded of the truth as it is 
in J esus, and who are thus not far from the kingdom of hea- 
ved—that the Holy Spirit may touch their hearts as with a 
live coal from the altar, converting their knowledge into 
wisdom, and their gifts into graces. Abjuring the more 
than presumptuous dogma, that there is any inherent re- 
newing efficacy in mere human means apart from the Di- 
vine blessing, let us also abjure the worse than fanatical 
dogma, that there is reason to expect the Divine blessing 
apart from the use of appointed means. Let our most 
strenuous labours be ever accompanied with not less strenu- 
ous and persevering prayer : let our most fervent prayers 
be ever followed by hearty practices ; and we have the pro- 
mise of the Eternal, that sooner or later we shall reap the 
most glorious reward. 

Again and again has it been alleged that the system of 
Hinduism is unchanged and unchangeable. Such an allega- 
tion, it might be demonstrated, is directly contrary to the 
designs and purposes of the Eternal, as revealed in God's 
holy oracles. If, apart from this momentous consideration, 
a fallacy so pertinaciously reiterated could be demolished 
by argument and fact, the intelligible processes that have 
been for years conducted, and the visible fruits that have 
already been realized in the Calcutta and other Education- 
al Institutions, are more than, sufficient to inflict its 
death-blow. The Brahmans, as already remarked elsewhere, 
the great pillars of the system, may indeed boast that it is 
to last for ever ; and they may find a few scantling admirers 
among the professed disciples of a better faith. They may 
continue to regard themselves as the living representatives 
m human form, of sages, and demi-gods, and full-grown divi- 
nities, that encircle with golden radiance the summits of 
Sumeru. They may stalk proudly forth in front of their 



602 

legions ; and laugh to scorn the pretensions of a revelation 
which is but as of yesterday, compared with the mighty roll 
of ages that has wafted down their own hoary chronicles ; and 
eye with derision the magnificent triumphs of our modern 
philosophy. The rise and progress of the former they may 
compare to the sudden growth of some russet-weed, that 
springs up in a day, and may be trodden under foot, or 
crushed beneath the wheels of every passing vehicle— and 
the whole vast mass of European literature and science may 
seem to them but as a drop, a single drop, surreptitiously 
abstracted from the boundless ocean of Shastra erudition. 
The present they may view solely in the mirror of the past ; 
and in it regard nought as valuable that has not the stamp of 
an immeasurable antiquity. In men who are themselves the 
chosen high priests of those ancient mysteries, which it were 
profanation for the multitude to attempt to comprehend, and a 
still greater profanation not to believe and venerate; nothing 
may awaken a holier indignation than to presume to ques- 
tion their own infallibility as the dispensers of a treasure 
so divine ; while the sacrilegious attempt to intrude upon 
the long and undisturbed reign of ignorance, superstition, 
and "philosophy falsely so called," may be more than 
enough to excite their pious horror, and call forth their direst 
anathemas. With infinite satisfaction they mount on the 
wings of tradition, and reach some of those fantastic regions 
of the past, which exclude from the view things present, and 
even things terrestrial ; and there, enlightened by another 
sun, encompassed by another atmosphere, surrounded by 
other fields, and associated with beings of different order, 
they may enjoy, in reference to earth, a kind of oblivious 
absorption. There they may repose on the downy pillows 
of self-complacency, and swell with self-elation at every 
thought of their heaven-born origin and godlike privileges. 
There they may loll and muse on those tales of wonder that 
scorn the application of reason, and set at defiance the ex- 
travagance of romance ; or they may sleep and dream of 
those feats of unearthly valour, which are said to have been 
witnessed from the snowy heights of Himalaya, and to have 



60S 



encircled with the halo of immortality, many a plain, and 
many a river, long ere, in our estimation, this globe had 
taken its station, by the fiat of the Almighty, among the 
orbs that float through the regions of immensity ! And it 
may be, that we might as well attempt, by the artillery of 
reason, and argument, and observation, and fact, to remove 
them from their aerial citadel, as expectthat the planets could 
be wrenched from their orbits by the artillery of the clouds. 
What then I Must we conclude that their repose is to last 
for ever ? No, no. The whole strain of Scripture prophecy 
forbids it. The entire mass of historic experience forbids 
it. Three centuries ago, did not a stupendous sys- 
tem of false religion and false philosophy, colossus-like, be- 
stride and crush the universal mind of Europe ? At length, 
when the time appointed came, did not the commissioned 
herald arise? Sounding the trump of true religion, did he 
not shake the entire fabric to its basis, throughout every 
province and kingdom of Christendom? Then, following 
closely in his rear, did not another chosen herald arise ?— 
and, sounding the trump of true philosophy, did he not dash 
the surviving fragments into the pool of oblivion? Shall 
not we be encouraged by examples so illustrious, and tri- 
umphs so complete, to go forth now, among the vast fabrics 
of false religion, and false philosophy in the East ? and if, 
in the name and strength of our God, we sound, not in suc- 
cession, but simultaneously, the double trump of true reli- 
gion, and true philosophy, can we doubt of a victorious 
issue ? Impossible ! When those hitherto unsealed towers 
which have furnished the sons of Brahma with a refuge and 
a hiding-place, shall have been shaken and undermined by 
the very instruments which they now profess to regard with 
disdainful scorn, they may, rather they must, be awakened 
by the crash of descending ruins f 

With a form of prayer composed by the celebrated Lord 
Bacon, we may now appropriately conclude the whole of the 
present subject To God the Father, God the Word 
God the Spirit, we pour most humble and hearty supplica- 
tions ; that He, remembering the calamities of mankind, and 



604 



the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days 
few and evil, would please to open unto us new refreshments 
out of the fountains of His goodness, for the alleviation of 
our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that 
human things may not prejudice such as are Divine ; neither 
that, from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the 
kindling of a greater natural light, any thing of incredulity 
or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards Divine 
mysteries. But rather that,— by our mind thoroughly cleans* 
ed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject, 
and perfectly given up to the Divine Oracles,— there may be 
given up unto faith the things which are faith's.— Amen." 



j 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX 



&RIEF SKETCH of the circumstances which led to the delivery 
of the first series of Lectures on the Evidences and Doctrines of 
Natural and Revealed Religion ever addressed to an Audience of 
educated Hindus in Eastern India,— with notices of some of the 
results, as more especially manifested in the ultimate conversion 
of a few to the faith of Jesus. 

It is not in the physical constitution of nature alone that a chaos has pre- 
ceded a paradise. In the moral world the same order has been observed, 
The reason of the order or law we may be unable to unfold : it may yet 
be hidden in the recesses of the uncreated mind. But of the constancy of 
the law— preserving, amid the widest dissimilarity of objects, an identity 
of principle —it were ignorance to doubt. It is early as the date of cre- 
ation, and extensive as its limits. 

Moral as well as physical elements may, for years or ages, lie dormant 
or mishapen,— unimpregnated with life or motion, or any of the incipient 
principles of change. But, let these once be aroused from torpid slumber, 
and quickened by some vivifying power,— let them once be brought into' 
close or hostile collision,— and in the conflict the pure are ever found to 
assimilate, and ascend with buoyant energy above the gross : light emerges 
from the darkness ; deadness is awakened into vitality ; out of evil is 
produced good ; out of deformity, beauty ; out of confusion, harmony. 

Mere repose can never afford any certain indication of life or health. 
It may be the repose of perfect stagnation,— the lifeless surface of the re- 
ceptacle of all that is impure, deformed, and putrescent, Such we believe 
to have been the fatal repose, or foul stagnation of mind, among the natives 
of India for many centuries, or,— if they rather wish, through infatuated 
credulity, to persevere in consummating the disgrace of glorying in their 
own shame,— for ages so vast in number, as to appear to the beings of a day 
to be lost in the dark abyss of eternity. To imbue, then, this impassable 
mass with any of the principles of life,— to impress it with any of the ten- 
dencies of motion,— to bring its sluggish elements into any kind of colli- 
sion with each other, or with purer elements :— this, this is the task of 
Herculean magnitude. 



608 



On this account it was that we rejoiced, in June 1830, when, in the 
metropolis of British India, we fairly came in contact with a rising body 
of natives, who had learnt to think and to discuss all subjects with un- 
shackled freedom— though that freedom was ever apt to degenerate into 
license in attempting to demolish the claims and pretensions of the 
Christian, as well as every other professedly revealed faith. We hailed the 
circumstance, as indicating the approach of a period for which we had 
waited, and longed, and prayed. We hailed it as heralding the dawn of 
an auspicious era ;— an era that introduced something new into the hitherto 
undisturbed reign of a hoary and tyrannous antiquity ;— an era that could 
not be too highly prized, as it promised to realize in the bud the instinc- 
tive longings, and ardent hopes of the past, and expand into the future its 
opening blossoms and its ripening fruits. 

To many it might appear like blindly dissolving the connection between 
cause and effect, to found our encouragement on frowns and mustering 
opposition. But really, any thing is better than that inaction— that lifeless- 
ness— that unimpressible apathy of soul which presents an aspect as cheer- 
less and hopeless, as a mass of rude, uninformed matter. Life is better 
than death, though it first appear only in the ragings of the prince of dark- 
ness. Activity is bett er than total inertness, though at first exhibited only in 
the convulsive heavings of the spirit of error. Enough that a portion of 
life and motion has been communicated ! Enough that the enemy has at 
length been shaken out of his impregnable security—that he is urged to 
sound the trumpet of alarm— that he is compelled to rally his scattered 
and long slumbering forces,— and that he finds himself necessitated to 
prepare for the toil, and the fierceness, and the hazard of a mighty con- 



test ! 



About the time already referred to, the Government Anglo-Indian Col- 
lege of Calcutta had begun to put forth some of its ripest fruits. That 
Institution, as has already been repeatedly remarked, is the very beau-ideal 
of a system of education without religion. It communicates largely European 
literature and science ; but, as far as its regulations extend, neither within 
nor without its walls will it tolerate the impartation of religious truth. Now, 
the citadel of Hinduism being, from the base to its highest pinnacle, a 
citadel of error, it can never resist a vigorous onset of true knowledge how- 
ever secular. Accordingly, their ancestorial faith was completely sub- 
verted in the minds of the more advanced alumni of the Government 
College, but nothing better was attempted or allowed to be substituted in 
its room. Many had become, or were rapidly becoming, sceptics ; and 
others direct atheists. 

In this state of things, the question was seriously agitated by the friends 
of religion and social order, What can be done towards checking this 
growing licentiousness of opinion, and giving a wholesome direction to 
the newly awakened mind % Happily, the greater part made it their pro- 
fession and their boast, that they were free inquirers after truth. The sin- 



609 



eerity of this profession was speedily put to the test. Addressing them 
separately and collectively, the simple downright appeal was pressed home 
on their understandings and their heart :— « Hinduism you now know 
sufficiently, to despise it ; but do you really know Christianity ? If not, is 
it fair, honest, or reasonable, to condemn it as a noxious superstition, un- 
known and unheard ? We believe it to be not only true, but truth it- 
self ; and we profess to be able to give a reason for the belief that is in us. 
Are ye not then bound in consistency, as avowed inquirers after truth, to 
give at least a candid hearing to its claims, before ye finally reject it ? " 

These and similar appeals were not made and reiterated in vain ; though 
many were the difficulties that had to be surmounted before verbal ad- 
missions were turned into practices. And not the least of these lay in 
the extreme aversion which was felt to seem even to receive any instruc- 
tion from missionaries ;— whom it was the fashion to regard either as igno- 
rant fanatics, or designing impostors,— the Arch-Brahmans of Christianity, 
which, from its extensive sway both in the Old World and New, only 
appeared as the most gigantic of the superstitions of the earth ! At length, 
however, all obstacles were removed ; and a goodly number agreed to at- 
tend—some to save their credit for consistency ; others out of sheer curio- 
sity some, as they afterwards confessed, to display their own superior 
learning and talent, and befool the missionaries ; and others from a really 
conscientious desire to investigate the claims of the Christian faith. Hence 
^originated the idea of instituting a systematic course of Theological Lec- 
tures in the English language, designed expressly for the Educated Natives. 

The subjects to be embraced were :— 1st, The External and Internal 
Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. 2d, The proofs, derived 
from profane history, of the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy, as a source 
of evidence, which it was supposed the attainments and previous studies 
of the young men would prepare them to appreciate. 3d, The facts re- 
corded in the four Gospels, as exhibiting the moral character of the 
Founder of Christianity, and the genius and temper of His religion ; and, 
Atlily, The doctrines of Revelation. 

In attempting to carry on this first design, several individuals happily 
co-operated. The delivery of Lectures on the first part of the proposed 
course was devolved upon me. The justly lamented Mr Adam of the Lon- 
don Missionary Society, undertook the second. Mr Hill of the same So- 
ciety, and now of Oxford, the third. And Mr Dealtry, now Archdeacon 
of Calcutta, the fourth. My house being conveniently situated in the 
square of the Hindu College, it was agreed that there our public meetings 
should be held. The lower part of it was accordingly fitted up as a lec- 
ture room. After repeated conferences, all the practical arrangements 
were finally concluded. The lecturer was to be permitted to finish his 
lecture without interruption. Thereafter, one or all of the auditors in 
succession were to be allowed the most unrestricted liberty to start all 
manner of objections, and freely interrogate the lecturer as to any of the 
points discussed by him. 

By mutual understanding, it was resolved that the First Lecture should 

Q q 



610 



be of a general description, and introductory to the whole course. As the 
force even of truth itself depends much upon the moral state of the heart, 
it was to be chiefly devoted to a statement of the moral qualifications 
necessary for investigating truth,— with a special view, as far as possible, 
to purge the mind of those prejudices which so powerfully obstruct its 
advancement in true knowledge. The preparation of this Introductory 
Lecture, was undertaken by Mr Hill. And early in the month of August 
1830, at the time and place appointed, the Lecture— a truly appropriate 
and eloquent one— was delivered to a highly respectable and attentive 
auditory of young native gentlemen. 

Instantly the report spread through the native community, with the rapidi- 
ty and violence of the beacon blaze of feudalism. The whole town was liter- 
ally in an uproar. Like a garrison taken by surprise, and suddenly awakened 
out of a long and profound sleep, every one sprung to anus,— resolved to 
defend himself from this unexpected attack of an inveterate foe. It is 
impossible to conceive or describe the wide and simultaneous sensation 
produced. Ignorance of the real nature of our object,— and particularly 
of the mode of prosecuting it— varied, distorted, and exaggerated every ru- 
mour. The prevalent idea seemed to be, that by fair means or foul— by 
bribery or magical influence — by denunciation or corporeal restraint— 
we were determined to force the young men to become Christians. 
Moreover, it was insidiously alleged, by many who knew better, that this 
was only the commencement of a general system of coercive measures 
towards the conversion of the mass of the people. And in this supposed 
aggressive movement of violence, the Government itself was, by a perverse 
ingenuity, dragged in for a full share of the blame. Meetings without 
number continued for several days to be held, and various measures of 
self-defence were discussed or resolved upon. At last, some of the more 
bigoted of the parents went and lodged their complaints with the body of 
College managers, composed partly of natives of rank, and partly of Euro- 
peans—one of whom must always be a functionary high in the service of 
Government. The line of duty which that body ought to have pursued on 
the occasion was perfectly clear. They ought distinctly to have declared, 
that their part of the compact was to allow neither Christianity, nor any 
other religion, to be taught or discussed within the college,— that to this 
engagement they had most rigidly adhered— that their authority did not 
extend beyond the walls of the Institution,— that they had neither the 
right nor the power to interfere with the manner in which the students 
might dispose of their leisure hours, and that all such private oversight 
must wholly devolve on the parents and guardians themselves. Nay more, 
as they had the most unbounded confidence of the native community, 
they might, had they so willed it, by seasonable and satisfactory explana- 
tions, have completely dissipated the cloud of misapprehensions under 
the darkening and confounding shades of which that community was be- 
trayed into the most groundless extravagances of thought, word, and 
deed. But instead of acting in this way, the managers assembled in 
breathless haste ; concocted and issued, with all their signatures appended, 



611 



a decree expressive of their "strong disapprobation" of the past conduct 
of the young men j and peremptorily prohibiting their attendance in future, 
on any society or meeting for religious discussion, under the pain of in- 
curring their "serious displeasure." Immediately on the issuing of this 
intolerant order, we had no alternative but publicly to announce the ne- 
cessity under which we were laid of discontinuing, at least for a time, the 
delivery of the intended Course of Lectures. The Government Gazette 
exposed the absurdity of supposing that any of the public authorities had 
any share at all in the matter. To prevent, however, the possibility of 
misconception, some of us deemed it to be our duty to solicit a private 
audience of the Governor-General, in order to explain at large the real 
circumstances of the case ;— though, as his Lordship assured us, he felt 
quite satisfied of our integrity of motive and propriety of conduct, without 
any such explanation. In the periodicals and public journals of the Pre- 
sidency, various statements were inserted, expository of our views, and 
amply vindicatory of our object. 

So far as the European community were concerned, when once the 
simple facts were divulged, there was but one unanimous opinion on the 
subject. All the English Journals, without any exception, united in our 
defence, and in the strongest and most indignant condemnation of the 
conduct of the College managers. Their interference was denounced as 
" Presumptuous, because, as managers, they had no right whatever to dic- 
tate to the students of the Institution, how they should dispose of their 
time out of college ;"— as " tyrannical, because, although they had not the 
right, they had the power, if they would dare the consequences, to inflict 
their serious displeasure on the disobedient ;"— as "absurd and ridiculous, 
because, if the students knew their rights, and had the spirit to claim 
them, the managers would not venture to enforce their own order, and it 
would fall to the ground, an abortion of intolerance." In a somewhat 
similar strain of indignant remark, was the conduct of the managers com- 
mented on by the editors of all the English Journals. 

Indeed, it was impossible on any principle of reason, or any genuine maxim 
of prudence, to justify their intolerant decree. Could it be said, in the first 
place, to be distinguished by the quality of tcisdom 1 From the manifold 
modes in which wisdom may manifest itself, we select one that is very fami- 
liar, viz., the adaptation which subsists between means and ends. Wherever 
means are so skilfully contrived as invariably to produce the desired effect, 
there do we discern an outward manifestation of wisdom— one of the bright- 
est attributes of a designing intelligence. Now, as the intention of the 
managers was to accomplish a certain end by the application of certain 
means, — the end being, the suppression of one or every species of religious 
inquiry, and the means, an absolute or peremptory decree,— we might 
pointedly ask, Was there a congruity between the means employed, and 
the end intended to be accomplished ? Was there an acknowledged con- 
nection between external violence, and a forcible restraining of the free- 
dom of mental inquiry ? When the faculties of the soul were awakened 
and powerfully moved in a specific direction, was there in outward force 



612 

an adaptation peculiarly suited, and a charm sufficiently potent, suddenly 
to arrest its growing activities, or divert them into a different channel I 
The uniform testimony borne by the history of all ages proves the contrary. 
And the power of this testimony is such, that it will not be reckoned 
an indication of wisdom, to attempt by violence to crush the expanding 
energies of a mind really awakened to the investigation of all-important 
truth, till it shall be deemed the perfection of wisdom to apply mere brute 
force as the only effective means of quenching a blazing conflagration. 

Could it be said, in the second place, that the decree was distinguished 
by the quality of justice ? Without alluding to the many forms in which 
the abstract principle of justice may exhibit a special developement, we 
may simply refer to one that is universally known and acknowledged. 
<* It suits the character of a god," said the Scythian ambassadors to 
Alexander, " to bestow favours on mortals ; not to deprive them of 
what they have." It also suits the character of man, when possessed 
of the means, to emulate the generosity of the former action : it both 
suits his character, and is always in his power, to recoil from the in- 
justice of the latter. What is peculiarly one's o«w— -what belongs in- 
alienably, or by virtue of constitutional right to a particular individual^ 
it is just to let him possess, it is palpably unjust to alienate. Ap. 
ply this simple principle to the present question. An exact definition 
of religion is not necessary. We know, in general, that it is only an- 
other name for the relation which subsists between a soul and its Maker 
—together with all the thoughts, feelings, and duties involved in that high 
and holy relation. It is the intercourse of the soul with God. It is the 
expression for that whole assemblage of reciprocal dealings between the 
spirit of man and the Eternal Spirit. Hence it is that the very existence 
of religion, as a separate intelligible reality, depends absolutely on the 
indissoluble relationship between the creature and the Creator ; and 
necessarily excludes the idea of any intermediate claim— of any ulterior 
interference. The right of the Almighty to the free and entire homage 
of the heart, and an immediate reference to His will in all things, flows 
necessarily from His character as Supreme Lawgiver, Sovereign, Judge. 
The right of man to unshackled freedom, in following the dictates of con- 
science in the sight of God alone, enters as an essential ingredient into 
the nature of that moral constitution under which he is placed— is involv- 
ed in the very condition of humanity — and ceases only when man ceases 
to be a creature. Hence the evil, — the real injustice of the intention, or at_ 
tempt to strip man of liberty of conscience on those subjects that supremely 
concern the soul, in the high and noble relation which it bears to the Omni- 
scient Judge. It is an usurpation of the prerogative, an alienation of the 
unchangeable claims of Deity : it is a deprivation of the inalienable right— an 
attempted destruction of the solemn responsibility of man : it is an evil, 
therefore, an injustice, that vastly exceeds the limits and measures of 
finite calculation. The very intention to commit such an outrage is un- 
just : the actual attempt is, if possible, still more unjust : and an obstinate 
perseverance in the attempt must be the most unjust of all. Let us. 



613 



think seriously of all this, and then revolve in our mind the fact, that 
the managers of the Hindu College not only intended, but actually at- 
tempted ; not only attempted, but actually persevered in the attempt, 
violently to deprive the native youth of their birth-right— their most glo- 
rious possession-freedom of thought-liberty of conscience in what ex- 
clusively concerned them and their God :-and we leave it to the lovers 
of justice to devise, if they can, any designation sufficiently expressive of 
the injustice of the attempt. 

Could it be said,in the third place, that the decree was distinguished by the 
quality of goodness 1 In this interminable theme, we fix upon one point for 
illustration. From some motive,— the spirit of philanthropy it may be,— an 
enlightened education is conferred on the native youth, admirably adapted 
to destroy all faith in the false religion of their fathers. And then, in the 
spirit of this anomalous philanthropy, an imperious interdict is immediately 
laid on the attempt to substitute a purer and a better faith. Was this good ? 
Why, though the accountability of man were a shadow, and an eternal here- 
after a dream,— this could scarcely be called good. What then shall be said 
—when the one is found to be a substance, and the other a sober reality ? 
Is it not a serious and a solemn thing to know what that is, which can 
insure God's favour now, and the continuance of His favour for evermore ? 
And how can this knowledge be acquired in circumstances such as those 
already described ? In the world, there are many forms of religion, and 
each of these professes to disclose this prime of knowledge — the richest 
jewel in the empire of truth. Now, all of these forms may contain some 
truths, but aU of them cannot be equally true. How, then, is the true to 
be discovered by an ignorant, but thoughtful and inquiring mind ? Only 
by a careful examination and comparison of evidence and subject-matter. 
Otherwise, one may "perish for lack of knowledge." For millions, and 
millions more,in every country and age, have already embraced and adhered 
to systems in themselves most corrupt, and in their effects most deadly 
Why? Not, because they have seriously examined the evidences and con- 
tents of otfar religions, and have been convinced, from the comparison, of 
the superiority of their own but, because they have examined only one; or 
rather, have known, or determined to know, only one ; and have embraced 
it without any examination. Was it good, then, on the part of a managing 
body, clad in « a little brief authority," to crush all such inquiry, and ex- 
amination, and comparison ? Was it good, forcibly to restrain beings en- 
dowed with immortal spirits, from discovering the true religion—the true 
relation between the creature and the Creator— the true source of pre- 
sent and never-ending bliss 2 And, by virtue of such forcible restraint 
was it good to be guilty of that worse than homicidal act, which might in- 
volve the souls of so many in the hazard of present and eternal condem- 
nation ? Where were the relentings of generosity,— the tender meltings 
of a genuine benevolence ? Here, alas ! there were none. 



After a brief period, the violent commotion subsided. But the agita- 



614 



tion — igniting certain combustible elements that had long lain dormant* 
and, summoning into exercise some of the strongest principles of our 
common nature,— had given an impulse previously unknown to the slug- 
gish inert mass of mind. The inquiries and discussions had evoked a 
spirit, which, instead of being crushed, could only be stimulated by into- 
lerance, — a spirit whieh, noisily effervescing then, has been silently but 
effectually, fermenting ever since. 

There were two practical ways in which this spirit continued publicly 
to manifest itself. 

H The first appeared in the almost instantaneous formation of a great number of 
debating societies. The young men were indeed forbidden to hold or attend 
any meetings, avowedly organised for the discussion of merely religious 
subjects. But this prohibition only aroused all their latent energies ; and 
they immediately resolved to form associations, at which, under the garb of 
literature and philosophy, they might give free utterance to all the senti- 
ments of their hearts. 

Up to the time of issuing the prohibitory enactment, there existed, 
among the new race of illuminati, only one society for literary investi- 
gations ; and it had been instituted chiefly by the influence, ■ and per- 
petuated by the encouragement and presence of a few European gentle- 
men, who took a warm interest in the enlightenment of the native mind. 
But after the promulgation of that decree, the direct stimulus of Euro- 
pean agency was not needed. A fount of thought, and feeling, and in- 
quiry, had been opened, which must find vent for itself, even if it be 
through the crevices of the most rocky obstacles. " The night of de- 
solation and ignorance," remarked a writer in one of the native news- 
papers, " is beginning to change its black aspect ; and the sky, big 
with fate, is about to bring forth a storm of knowledge, which will scatter 
and sweep those airy battlements away that so long imprisoned the tide 
of thought." New societies started up with the utmost rapidity in every 
part of the native city. There was not an evening in the week, on which 
one, two, or more of these were not held ; and each individual was gene- 
rally enrolled a member of several. Indeed, the spirit of discussion be- 
came a perfect mania ; and its manifestation, both in frequency and variety, 
was carried to a prodigious excess. But this was the first natural result of 
the explosion of that mine which had so recently been sprung. 

At one or other of these societies I felt it to be at once a duty and a privi- 
lege constantly to attend ; because there I could obtain a more thorough ac- 
quaintance with the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the educated na- 
tives, as well as with their peculiar modes of thinking on all subjects, literary 

and philosophical, political and religious,— than it was possible in any other 
way so speedily and effectually to have acquired. To a British-born sub- 
ject, the free use in debate of the English language by these olive-com- 
plexioned and bronze-coloured children of the East, on their own soil, and 
at the distance of thousands of miles from the British shores, presented 
something indescribably novel and even affecting. Nor was the effect at 
all diminished, but rather greatly heightened, when, ever and anon,after the 



615 



fashion of public speakers in our own land, the sentiments delivered were 
fortified by oral quotations from English authors. If the subject was histori- 
cal, Robertson and Gibbon were appealed to ; if political, Adam Smith and 
Jeremy Bentham ; if scientific, Newton and Davy ; if religious, Hume and 
Thomas Paine ; if metaphysical, Locke and Reid, Dugald Stewart and 
Brown. The whole was frequently interspersed and enlivened by passages 
cited from some of our most popular English poets, particularly Byron and 
Sir Walter Scott. And more than once were my ears greeted with the 
sound of Scotch rhymes from the poems of Robert Burns. It would not 
be possible to pourtray the effect produced on the mind of a Scotsman j 
when, on the banks of the Ganges, one of the sons of Brahma,— in review- 
ing the unnatural institution of caste in alienating man from man, and in 
looking forward to the period in which knowledge, by its transforming 
power, would make the lowest type of man feel itself to be of the same 
species as the highest,— suddenly gave utterance, in an apparent ecstasy 
of delight, to these characteristic lines : — 

K For a' that, and a' that, 

Its comin' yet, for a' that, 
That man to man, the world o'er, 
Shall brothers be, for a' that." 

How was the prayerful aspiration raised, that such a consummation might 
be realized in a higher and nobler sense than the poet or his Hindu 
admirer was privileged to conceive ! 

But the most striking feature in the whole was the freedom with which 
all the subjects were discussed. 

The grand characteristic of the inhabitants of tropical climes generally 
is their passive indolence of habit, bodily and mental. The natural and 
necessary effects of such a habit are very well described by Sismondi, in 
his short treatise on Prejudices, in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. This in- 
dolence, says he, or "love of repose, timidity, and mental inactivity, — those 
voluntary diseases which weaken and paralyse the exercise of reason, with- 
out substituting any other faculty of the mind in its stead, — must neces- 
sarily produce an aversion to new ideas, to change, to reform ; to all, in 
short, that requires any great energy of mind, or that militates against the 
principles men had already formed ; and its empire is great, according to 
the inveteracy of their prejudices. And this dread of new experience, this 
repugnance to investigation, this unwillingness to the exercising of their 
faculties on subjects of speculation to which they have been unaccustomed, 
are increased and fortified by personal and national pride. There is not 
one point or department in the ancient system that they will consent to 
abandon, because in their estimation, every part being connected with the 
whole, is equally sacred ; which is indeed the case, when they are all 
equally founded on ignorance and prejudice. Such, undoubtedly, is one 
of the principal reasons of the unshaken stability of these constitutions in 
the East, which have enchained the faculties of the human mind, and put 
a complete stop to the progress of improvement." 



616 



Now, it was not possible to be present for half an hour in any one of 
the societies now referred to, without being fully persuaded that of this 
mental disease the speakers had been thoroughly cured ; — that, out of this 
passive indolence of habit, which resists and abhors all change, they had 
been thoroughly shaken. Indeed, the boldness and fearlessness with 
which they canvassed the established opinions and practices of their 
countrymen, and the daring hardihood with which they assailed the sen- 
timents of some of the greatest masters in the republic of letters, whe- 
ther European or Asiatic, I seldom have seen equalled, and never sur- 
passed, in that happy land, the very touch of whose soil is freedom. It 
was an exhibition which could not fail to impress with astonishment the 
mind of a stranger, who had been accustomed to regard a Hindu as the 
very personification of superstitious credulity, and blind unthinking sub- 
missiveness to the dictation of a domineering priesthood. 

Now what was the instrumental cause of this mighty transformation ? 
It was none other than what is termed a " liberal English education." If 
it had not been for such an education, these free and rampant spirits, — 
instead of being able to denounce the most revered sentiments of their 
fathers as worse than antiquated prejudices, — would have been utterly pa- 
ralysed by a noxious priestcraft, and prostrate before a block of wood or 
stone. The legitimate result of English instruction could be no matter 
for abstract theory there. It glared upon one's very senses. The stoutest 
denier of it would soon be compelled to confess, that in the English lan- 
guage, with its true literature and science, we have an engine by which, 
if rightly wielded, the most towering superstitions and idolatries of the 
East might be levelled as effectually as the walled cities of the nations by 
the concussion of the Roman catapult. 

Nevertheless, from the entire absence of instruction, it was very melan- 
choly to observe the dreary wanderings of the educated natives, on the sub- 
ject of religion ; whose ways alone are pleasantness and peace. Their great 
authorities, as already noticed, were Hume's Essays and Fame's Age of 
Reason. With copies of the latter, in particular, they were abundantly 
supplied, — supplied from a land which has taught more than one valuable les - 
son to mankind, if mankind were only wise to learn. It was some wretched 
bookseller in the United States of America, who, — basely taking advantage 
of the reported infidel leanings of a new race of men in the East, and appa- 
rently regarding no God but his silver dollars, — despatched to Calcutta a 
cargo of that most malignant and pestiferous of all anti-Christian publica- 
tions. From one ship a thousand copies were landed, and at first sold at 
the cheap rate of one rupee per copy ; but such was the demand, that the 
price soon rose, and after a few months, it was actually quintupled. Besides 
the separate copies of the Age of Reason, there was also a cheap American 
edition, in one thick vol. 8vo., of all Paine's works, including the Rights of 
Man, and other minor pieces, political and theological. Strange, the migra- 
tions and transmission of error as well as of truth ! How little can an 
apostle of error or of truth foresee through what unknown realms and ages 
the good or evil seed which has been sown may be diffused j as if scattered 



617 



by the winds of heaven, to regerminate and grow and expand into Eden- 
trees of life, or Upas-trees of death ! How little could it have entered the 
imagination of Paine himself, that from the banks of the Ganges there 
would hereafter spring a race whose ruined spirits might one day upbraid 
him as the author of their curse ! 

At the new societies, opportunities were constantly presented for the 
advancement of counteractive statements and opinions on almost all sub- 
jects. When a topic for debate was selected, individuals were not appoint- 
ed to open the discussion on either side, as is customary in this country. 
Their theory was, that, as professing inquirers after truth, they ought not 
to do violence to any one's conscience, by constraining him to argue against 
his own settled convictions. All were therefore left alike free in their 
choice; — hence it not unfrequently happened, that more than half a 
dozen followed in succession on the same side. After all the mem- 
bers who were disposed had concluded, the strangers or visitors present 
were invited to deliver their sentiments on the leading subject of the even- 
ing's discussion ; or on any of the sentiments expressed by the different 
speakers in the course of it. It is scarcely necessary to add, that to this 
invitation it was ever felt to be a privilege to respond. And thus, after 
the proper debate had terminated, there often arose a new discussion 
in many respects more important than that which had preceded it. In 
this way, by being voluntarily put entirely on a level, and freely enter- 
ing the lists with those enthusiastic disputants, I was led to serve a re- 
gular apprenticeship in obtaining, unknowingly, some of the necessary 
qualifications for more effectively conducting certain labours that were 
afterwards to be devolved upon me, in the leadings of an overruling Pro- 
vidence. 



The second way in which the newly awakened spirit strongly manifest- 
ed itself, was through the medium of the press. A few months before 
the explosion consequent on the intended delivery of the Lectures, already 
so often referred to— an attempt was made by the CoUege illuminati to 
establish a Journal, under the name of the Parthenon, which might form 
a register of their thoughts and feelings. But, as stated by the Editor of 
another paper, « it died in its infancy, in consequence of the obstacle that 
was thrown in its way by misplaced authority. It withered in its very 
blossoms, by the heat of fanaticism on the part of a number of bigots, 
without ripening the fruits it was calculated to produce." Previously to 
that period, there were only two newspapers in Calcutta, in the vernacu- 
lar tongue— the Chundrika and Cowmudee— of genuine native growth. 
Even these had been in existence only for a year or two ; and, to the 
agitation of the question relative to the abolition of Sati, (Suttee,) or burn- 
ing of widows, they were whoUy indebted for their origin. 

The former paper was started as the organ of the ultra-idolatrous party,— 
constituting the great mass of the people,-and stood forth the impassioned 
advocate of religious female suicide. The latter arose in self-defence, as 



618 



the organ of the purely Pantheistic party ; consisting of a few learned 
Brahmans and their adherents, who do not hesitate speculatively to de- 
spise idolatry in its grossest forms, but most of whom, in practice, hesitate 
as little to pay external homage to its rites and observances. The subject 
of Sati having become wellnigh exhausted, these papers were rapidly 
languishing into decay. But the ferment produced by the Lecture-con- 
troversy, opened up new themes for discussion ; and infused new and un- 
wonted life before the crisis of their expiring agonies. Opposed to each 
other as these papers were, on the Sati and other questions of their own 
superstition, they both professed to adore the Vedas, and assumed an offen- 
sive attitude towards all other forms of faith. For the first time, Christi- 
anity now began to be vigorously assailed from the native press. Hence 
arose a new and very important sphere for missionary labour,— which we 
resolved not to leave for a moment unoccupied,— as those who made the 
attack, felt themselves bound in justice to throw open their columns for 
defence. 

But these senior journals did not furnish a sufficient outlet for the 
multifarious manifestations of the new spirit. In its first irregular and 
violent outbreak— before the different opinions could either be known or 
reduced into distinct classes, and before the leading representatives of 
generic differences of opinion could be drawn together for co-operation by 
mutual affinity of principle,— there suddenly appeared a thick crop of ephe- 
meral publications, in the form of weekly newspapers, about the size of a 
quarto sheet. The burst of desire for unlimited freedom of utterance 
through the press, seemed, if possible, to exceed the raging mania for oral 
discussions. And new vehicles of sentiment sprung up, in number and 
rapiditv, like mushrooms— though most of them were destined to be as 
short-lived. Indeed, in regard to the greater part, the idea was irresisti- 
bly suggested, both by their contents and after-results, that instead of 
being laboratories for the manipulation of wholesome sentiment, they had 
answered the purpose of scape-valves for the discharge of the super- 
abounding fumes of rancour, hatred, and virulence;— and these fumes hav- 
ing once been emitted in continuous explosions, the valves naturally clos- 
ed° leaving the remaining feculence quietly to subside in each foul repo- 

^Iffin the midst of such heterogeneousness, any thing could be said to 
be possessed in common, it was the bitter hostility towards Christianity 
which characterised all the journals. Here the evil genius of Paine was 
acain resuscitated. Passages from his Age of Reason were often trans- 
lated verbatim in the Bengali ; and inserted in the native newspapers. 
The editor of one of these, published a separate pamphlet, attacking the 
Bible on the score of its alleged inconsistencies. A copy of it he trans- 
mitted to me, with his compliments, challenging a reply. On examina- 
tion, I found it to consist chiefly of patched extracts from Paine, clothed 
in a Bengali garb. I need scarcely repeat, that the advocates of Chnsti- 
anitv were never loath to step forward in vindication of their most holy 
faith. And, indeed, with such effect was the warfare on the defensive 



619 



pushed, that some of the editors resolved to suspend their attacks alto- 
gether, rather than be constrained to publish the reply of the Christian 
missionaries. 

Out of the general agitation, at last arose, in close succession, three 
journals, decidedly superior to the rest in ability, matter, and execution. 
These, for years, survived the wreck and ruin of their less fortunate co- 
temporaries— having soon become the acknowledged organs of two very 
distinct classes of natives. 

The first established of these was the Reformer ; published exclusively 
in the English language. It excited, on its first appearance, an unbound- 
ed curiosity, chiefly from the circumstance of its being the first English 
newspaper ever conducted by natives. It represented the sentiments of 
a party not large in number, but potent in rank and wealth,— the party 
of the celebrated Rajah Rammohun Roy. Except the Rajah himself, not 
one of this party could be said to have acquired a thorough English educa- 
tion. As regarded mental culture, they were not half Anglicised ; and 
as regarded Hinduism, they were scarcely half liberalized. What know- 
ledge of English and liberality of sentiment they possessed, had been con- 
tracted chiefly in their constant habits of business and intercourse with 
enlightened Europeans. In politics, the Reformer at first assumed a tone 
of rancorous and undiscriminating violence towards the British Govern- 
ment ;— outdoing the wildest flights to which ultra-radicalism has ever soar- 
ed in these lands. A nondescript species of native oligarchy and repub- 
licanism combined, was the panacea proposed for remedying all the ills of 
India. It was thus unskilful and injudicious enough to attempt the erec- 
tion of towers and palaces out of the surrounding rubbish, by beginning 
at^ the top of the intended edifices— forcing a poor, blinded, ignorant, 
priest-ridden race, to listen to weekly orations on their abstract rights and 
privileges, as members of a great social polity, before they were capacitated 
to comprehend one jot or tittle of their individual rights as men. In reli- 
gion, it professed itself inimical to the popular idolatry. But instead of pro- 
posing anentirelynewsubstitute,it simply pleaded the necessity of a reform in 
the prevailing system—the necessity of sweeping away the mass of conniptions 
which, it alleged, had been accumulating in dead letter and living practices 
through a long succession of ages ; and the consequent propriety of re- 
verting to the supposed purer and less abhorrent system of the Vedas. 
It thus became the advocate of the monothism, or rather pantheism of these 
ancient writings— -treating it, however, more as the highest product of 
mere human philosophy, than as a doctrine of Divine Revelation. In its 
advocation of the Vedant system, it advanced the most baseless and ex- 
travagant assertions instead of sober evidence ; while it unsparingly load- 
ed with reproaches and abuse, the purest, the holiest, and the sublimest 
truths that ever shone in the spiritual firmament of a benighted world. 
A long series of articles, in particular, on « the Sermon on the Mount," 
were distinguished by a subtile and perverse ingenuity, in extracting evil 
out of good, that greatly exceeded any thing exhibited in the pages even 
of Paine j and to the shame of some of our countrymen it must be 



620 



added, that iu the preparation of these, material assistance was known to 
be obtained from men born and brought up in the bosom of the British 
Churches, and still retaining the dishonoured name of Christians ! But, 
how could all this motley, inefficacious, metaphysico-religionism — how 
could all this blind and tenacious cleaving to error, — all this contemptuous 
rejection of the only faith that is throughout adapted to the necessities of 
universal man, — ever prove helpful in really reforming a nation corrupt to 
the very core ? — was the natural exclamation of every true friend of India. 

The other two journals were the Enquirer and the Gyananeshun — the 
former in English, and the latter in Bengali ; both conducted by native 
editors. 

These became the established organs of that small party of educated 
Hindus, who had made the highest attainments in English literature, and 
the highest advances in liberality of sentiment ; who, alive to the ineffi- 
cacy of half-measures, and scorning the hypocrisy of double-dealing, had 
at once renounced, both in theory and practice, the whole system of Hin- 
duism, pure and impure, ancient and modern, Vedantic and Puranic ; — 
and who, being thus left in a region of vacancy as regards religion, an- 
nounced themselves to the world as free inquirers after truth. 

The speeches and writings of this party were at first marked by a de- 
gree of wild vehemence, which appeared to those who could not realize their 
peculiar experience, as worse than ridiculous. To one, however, who freely 
mingled in their society in so many ways, it appeared extremely natural. 
I know not whether I can succeed in conveying to others my own concep- 
tion of their position ; but at the risk of sharing in the ridicule with which 
they were visited, I must make the attempt. 

All who have dwelt in a land in which the alternations of the seasons 
are known in their extremes, may remember the time and the place when 
with transport of feeling, they could exclaim with Randolph — 

How Flora decks the fields 
With all her tapestry ! and the choristers 
Of every grove chaunt carols ! Mirth is come 
To visit mortals. Ev'ry thing is blithe, 
Jocund, and jovial ! 

They also can realize the perfect contrast to all this. Right well can they 
understand the poet in his description of a season, when — 

Nought around 
Strikes the sad eye but deserts lost in snow, 
And heavy loaded groves ; and solid floods 
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast, 
Their icy horror to the frozen main. 

And not less vividly can their fancy paint the return of those a softer 
gales, at whose kind touch the dissolving snows are lost in living torrents." 
The channelled streams now labour to tear away then- icy fetters : they 
continue to rise : they swell into floods : at length, with resistless im. 



621 



petuosity, they burst their frozen barriers, overflow their wonted bound- 
aries, and with unsparing fury spread terror and devastation over the 
surrounding country. Soon exhausted by the unnatural effort, the rage of 
the elements abates. The waters, gradually subsiding, withdraw within 
their accustomed limits ; and in streams and rivulets they glide alon*, 
covering the banks with verdure, and the plains with smiling plenty. ° 
It is not my intention minutely to push the application of these remarks. 
It is enough to state, that there is a balmy, blithesome period— the spring 
season of youth— the due cultivation of which must insure an autumn 
loaded with golden fruits, and the neglect of which must be prematurely 
succeeded by a state of being more dreary than the winter of old age. 
And m no country in the world can the transition from the verdant to 
the bleak, from the improvable to the almost unimprovable state of exist- 
ence, be more rapid than in India. No sooner is there manifested the 
incipient developement of those varied tendencies, mental and moral, 
which, if well directed, might be purified, strengthened, and ennobled, 
than they are, one and all of them, perverted or arrested .-—the moral sunk 
into the lowest depths of debasement ; and the mental crushed beneath the 
brooding incubus of monstrous fables and life-devouring forms. In such 
a state of things, who could escape? Not one. And few can expect 
wholly to escape till a brighter morn dawn on that benighted land. 

Among the innumerable multitudes who had fallen victims to a soul- 
withermg superstition, must be reckoned the spirited editors of the two 
journals last named, who may weUbe considered as the fitting representa- 
tives of the party that had advanced farthest in the pursuit of English 
literature and science. But to them it can never be a matter of reproach, 
that theirs was the inevitable doom of all ; though it must be matter of 
eternal thanksgiving to the great God, that, through His blessing, one of 
them has been enabled in some measure, and the other entirely, to con- 
quer the destiny which seemed prepared for them at their birth. 

Placed at the age of twelve or fourteen in an Institution where the rudi- 
ments of English were imparted, they greedily drank in large draughts of 
English feeling and sentiment. Having at length completed an ample 
course of literature and science, what a scene began to present itself to 
their astonished view ! Hinduism appeared spread out before their un- 
sealed vision like a dark dismal wilderness. Mounted on an eminence of 
intellectual light, they looked down, and beheld the millions of their coun- 
trymen grovelling at the base, tumbling and tossing alternately in the mud 
and mire of brutal worship, and for ever enveloped amid the chill damps 
and noxious vapours of a loathsome superstition. 

For a long time they weighed, laboured, and struggled ; and before they 
had obtained a single glimpse of the beauteous universe of revealed truth 
they were arousedinto uncontrollable indignation at thedarkening shades of 
the horrid spectacle presented to the mental eye. The violent explosions of 
bigotry aU around soon determined them publicly to break silence. And 
almost simultaneously they announced the publication of the Enquirer 
and Gyananeshun newspapers, the one in English, and the other in Ben- 



622 



gali ; as media for giving full scope to their own feelings and sentiments, as 
well as those of the party of which they were soon recognised as the leaders. 
And forth they did break with a tremendous noise, resembling that of 
many waters dashing to pieces the barriers that long confined them. Their 
attacks on the monstrous system of Hinduism generally, and on the all - 
absorbing selfishness and pride of the Brahmanical order in particular, 
were bold, unsparing, and destructive. Their ridicule was in general well 
pointed ; their satire and sarcasms most cutting ; their arguments aptly 
chosen to convince the understanding of the natives. 

From the sudden rebound of execration with which this first shock was 
met on the part of the Hindu community, the editors half shrunk ;— and 
when they gazed at the havoc they had made of all that was accounted 
reverend and sacred by those around them, they seemed half-inclined to 
relent. But they had gone too far. There was no alternative, except either 
to brave the execration of a blind and bigoted race, or to hazard the con- 
tempt of all truly wise, and good men. They chose the former. And on- 
wards still they rushed in their wild career, like an overflowing torrent, 
carrying destruction wherever it swept — hurling, in indiscriminate con- 
fusion, the defences and refuges of a tyrannical priesthood, and the towers 
and bulwarks of all religions, into its eddying waters. 

After the first paroxysm of indignation had exhausted itself in unmea- 
sured utterance, the rage of destructiveness somewhat abated, and they 
gradually returned to a channel of thought and expression more regularly 
marked by bounds of reason and sobriety. Still, each seemed to resemble 
the mountain stream, which, within its" comparatively narrow bed, seems 
ever restless, grumbling at the many obstacles that thwart its progress ; 
—then suddenly starting forwards, next tumbling over a precipice ; and 
growling angrily as it escapes from the dark and fathomless pool. 

The approach of at least one of these to the champaigne country, along 
which it afterwards proceeded more gently and usefully,— fertilizing, in- 
stead of spreading desolation all around, was accelerated by a train of 
events which must next be briefly narrated. 



During the whole of the discussions, oral 'and written, to which refer- 
ence has now been made, the breach between the ultra-idolatrous party, 
consisting of the great mass of the people— and the ultra-liberal party, 
consisting of the most highly educated of the rising generation, was daily 
widening. 

The levelling sentiments of the latter, as faithfully recorded in the En- 
quirer newspaper, seemed wholly to monopolize the conversation of the 
Hindus in their leisure hours. Being diametrically opposed to popular 
prejudices, the authors of them were detested and abhorred by their bi- 
goted countrymen ; and drew upon themselves « the thunders and fulmina- 
tions" of some, and « the curses and maledictions" of others. Again and 
again were the ringleaders of the growing apostasy summoned before « tri- 
bunals of the Orthodox," to answer for their conduct in thinking, and 



623 



speaking, and writing rebelliously against the religion of their ancestors. 
These summonses were contemptuously slighted ; and the awful threats not 
only of disgrace, but of final excommunication from caste^and all its privi- 
leges, treated as " idle wind." 

But although " these burstings of the rage of the bigots," as the En- 
quirer expressed it, did not effectually daunt the spirit, or materiaDy alter 
the determinations of the leaders, it need not be wondered that they were 
somewhat staggered, and their less courageous friends often tempted to 
act inconsistently with their professions. « To oppose," said the Enquirer, 
" the machinations of a whole set of people ; to bear the threats of zealots 
and ascetics with indifference ; to withstand the attacks of fanatics and 
hypocrites ; are acts that presuppose a considerable degree of fortitude — 
and this is a virtue very unequally gifted by nature. It will not, in con- 
sequence, be surprising if some of our friends, who have been refined by 
knowledge, and enlightened by education, be dismayed at the excitement 
of the bigots. This fear may lead to very serious evils. Observing the 
worldly inconveniences to which liberalism is subject, persons may very 
naturally be induced to be inconsistent in their principles and actions. 
Blowing hot and cold with the same mouth, will be the consequence. Profes- 
sions and feelings will not be reconciled with each other ; and every mis- 
fortune to which hypocrisy— and that is a bad cause— gives birth, will be- 
fall the natives." 

Far from being surprising, the wonder is that such a result was not 
universal. For what had any of these educated natives to support the soul 
in the midst of grievous persecution ? Nothing ; literally nothing. Error 
in religion they had detected and denounced ; but a single vital truth they 
had not yet discovered, — or if they had, did not embrace or believe. Their 
delight in exposing error they mistook for a love of the truth ; and their re- 
probation of what was demonstrably wrong, they confounded with the admi- 
ration of what was immutably right. Their religious creed, such as it was, 

consisted wholly of negatives. In it there was not a single positive principle 

not even the simplest and most fundament al of all principles— a rational be- 
lief in the being of a God. Now, does not the whole history of mankind 
prove that it is not the simple detection negatively of error, but a firm 
persuasion of positive influential truth, which can sustain the soul in the 
midst of difficulty and danger ? He is the freeman and the dauntless man, 
and the unmoveably determined man, whom the truth makes free, and 
dauntless, and determined. Often has the truth communicated, as it 
were, a portion of divinity to man. Often has it inspired that loftiness of 
spirit which proclaimed him gloriously free, though a thousand despots 
might claim him as their slave. Often have all the threatenings, and 
tortures, and flames, which malignant subtilty could suggest, or fiendish 
cruelty apply, left the soul deeply imbued with the love of truth, to rise 
in native majesty above the ruins of the outward man.— Like the sun in 
the firmament of heaven, who, — when darkest clouds obscure, or raging 
storms embroil the troubled atmosphere, — still shines on far above the re- 
gion of darkness and of tempest, in all his unborrowed and effulgent glories ! 



624 



But in the case now referred to, there was no fulcrum of religious truth 
on which the soul might he stayed in the day of trial. In issuing the first 
number of his paper, the editor's language was :— « Having thus launched 
01ir tark under the denomination of Enquirer, we set sail in quest of truth 
and happiness." And for months no truth seemed to he found ; for nought 
appeared in the paper hut denunciations of bigotry and superstition. There 
was enough to prove what was not truth— but no clue whatever to direct 
to what was truth. There was not even so much as an allusion to the ex- 
istence of a great First Cause. Who then need wonder that under the 
continued rage of persecution, some became faint-hearted, and others sub- 
mitted to ignominious retractation ? 

It was interestingly curious to remark, about the beginning of July 1831, 
how the tidings of the introduction of the Reform Bill, into the House of 
Commons, operated on spirits that were beginning to betray symptoms of 
depression and languishment. The first announcement of that measure, 
with the glowing speeches and appeals that accompanied it, as to the ne- 
cessity of change, and the assertion of popular rights, wrought with a 
mighty reviving influence. The next number of the Enquirer, in parti- 
cular, seemed as if penned with fire. All that is enchantingly heart-stir- 
ring in the story of Grecian and Roman liberty was rapturously rehearsed. 
And in the Reform Bill of England was traced the germ of Reformation 
throughout the world. " Hail, freedom, hail!" rung through the impas- 
sioned sentences. And tyrants and despots, aristocrats and priests, were 
already seen every where hanging down their heads, and bewailing the 
early departure of their power and glory. 

About the end of July, the Enquirer wrote as follows :— " The rage of 
persecution is still vehement. The bigots are up with their thunders of 
fulmination. The heat of the Guru m Shabha * is violent, and they know not 
what they are doing. Excommunication is the cry of the fanatic : we 
hope perseverance will be the Liberal's answer. The Gurum Shabha is 
high ; let it ascend to the boiling point. The Orthodox are in a rage ; let 
them burst forth into a flame. Let the Liberal's voice be like that of the 
Roman,— a Roman knows not only to act but to suffer. Blown be the 
trumpet of excommunication from house to house. Be some hundreds 
cast out of society ; they will form a party— an object devoutly to be 
wished by us." 

The time for commencing the work of formal excommunication arrived 
much sooner, and in a way more singular, than the Enquirer or any one 
else could have imagined ;— furnishing a notable instance, on a small scale, 
of what has been so often exemplified in the changes and revolutions in 
the moral world, that when an extensive train has been laid, it is impos- 
sible to foretell at what point, on what occasion, by what igniting circum- 
stance, it may be made to explode. It may be thought strange that an ex- 
plosion did not take place sooner, when such outrages were committed 

* The proper designation of the Society is Dharma Suhha, or " Holy Assembly," the lead- 
ing Society of the great idolatrous party. Gurum, means « hot," and is introduced ironically 
to denote the heat of wrath against the Liberals. 



625 



against the popular faith. But the truth is, that the number of the liberals, 
and the rank and influence of their friends, were staggering circumstances. 
Hinduism in Calcutta was evidently on the decline ; and its adherents would 
not, if they could possibly avoid it, resort to the last extremity against so 
many. Besides, it was firmly believed, that by bribes, temptations, and 
especially threats and ill treatment, they would wear out the patience and 
break down the spirit of the illuminati into a recantation of their errors. 
This prospect the bigots regarded as certain, and its realization would have 
been the most glorious triumph. Again, these liberals, though they abused 
Hinduism, neither knew nor embraced any other form of faith. If they 
had done so, excommunication must have followed as a matter of course. 
Once more, popular Hinduism is so largely a matter of " meats and drinks, 
and divers washings," rather than of opinions or principles,— that a latitude 
may be for a time winked at as to the latter, which could not for a mo- 
ment be tolerated as to the former. If, for instance, instead of ridiculing 
the gods, or denouncing their religious services, any of the liberals had 
been known openly to partake of a piece of " beef," a sentence of excom- 
munication would instantly be carried into execution. 

Some of the less prudent of the liberal party, unpossessed as they were 
of any moral or religious principle, gradually turned their liberty into li- 
centiousness, and allowed themselves to run into every excess of riot and 
of outrage. 

On the evening of the 23d August (1831,) a considerable number of 
these assembled in the family-house of the editor of the Enquirer ; and took 
possession of the apartment where they were wont to hold their meetings 
for deliberation or discussion. The editor himself happened to be from 
home ; and in his absence, his friends resolved to give practical proof of 
the conquest they had achieved over hereditary prejudice. How could 
this be most effectually done ? By an act, which, with our habits and as- 
sociations, we might pronounce ridiculously trivial. If there be any thing 
on which a genuine Hindu is taught, from earliest infancy, to look with 
absolute abhorrence, it is the flesh of the bovine species. If there be any 
thing which, of itself singly, must at once degrade a man from his caste, 
it is the known participation of that kind of food. Authentic instances 
are on record, wherein a Brahman, violently seized by a Moslem, has had 
such meat forced into his mouth ; and though deprived of voluntary 
agency, as much as the veriest automaton, the contamination of the 
touch was held to be so incapable of ablution, that the hapless, helpless, 
unwilling victim of intolerance, has been actually sunk, along with his 
posterity, for ever into the wretched condition of outcast. "Well in 
order to furnish the most emphatic proof to each other of their mastery 
over prejudice, and their contempt of the ordinances of Hinduism, these 
friends of liberty had some pieces of roasted meat — believed to be beef — 
brought from the bazaar into the private chamber of the Enquirer. Hav- 
ing freely gratified their curiosity and taste with the unlawful and unhal- 
lowed food, some portion still remained ; which, after the return of the 
Enquirer, was thrown, though not with his approbation, in heedless and 

R r 



626 



reckless levity, into the compound, or inner court of the adjoining house, 
occupied by a holy Brahman, amid shouts of—" There is beef ! there is 
beef ! " The sacerdotal master of the dwelling, aroused by the ominous 
sound, and exasperated at the unpardonable outrage which he soon found 
had been perpetrated upon his feelings and his faith, instantly rushed with 
his domestics to the quarter whence it proceeded ; and, under the influ- 
ence of rage and horror, taking the law into his own hands, he violently 
assaulted the Enquirer and his friends. 

Knowing that they had been guilty of an action which admitted of no 
defence, the latter confessed their criminality ; uniting in apologies for the 
past, and promises of amendment for the future. But neither confession nor 
apology, nor promise of amendment, would suffice. The openly avowed opi- 
nions and conduct of the Enquirer and his friends, had long been a public 
scandal and offence in the eyes of their bigoted countrymen ; and, short of 
formal excommunication, they were in consequence subjected to all manner 
of persecution. But the crisis— the hour of unmitigated retribution— had 
now arrived. Hundreds speedily rallied around the Brahman, the sanctuary 
of whose home had been so grossly violated by the presence of the abomina- 
tion of abominations. Inflamed with uncontrollable indignation, they per- 
emptorily demanded of the family of the Enquirer to disown him in the pre- 
sence of competent witnesses, under pain of expulsion from caste them- 
selves. Having no alternative, his family then called upon him formally 
to recant his errors, and proclaim his belief in the Hindu faith, or instantly 
to leave the home of his youth, and be for ever denuded of all the privi- 
leges and immunities of caste. He chose the latter extremity. Accord- 
ingly, towards midnight, without being able to take formal leave of any 
of his friends, he was obliged to take his departure he knew not whither, 
because he could not be prevailed upon to utter what he knew to be false. 
" We left," wrote he, " the home where we passed our infant days ; we 
left our mother that nourished us in our childhood ; we left our brothers 
with whom we associated in our earliest days ; we left our sisters with 
whom we sympathized since they were bom." 

As he and his friends were retiring, the infuriated populace broke loose 
upon them ; and it was with some difficulty they effected their escape, and 
found shelter in the house of an acquaintance considerably removed from 
the paternal residence. The separation from his friends he felt so heavily 
that it threw him into a fever. Soon, however, he recovered his bodily 
health ; but remained much agitated and distracted in mind. At times he 
was desperately enraged against a religion which severed him from his mo- 
ther and affectionate relatives ; and in the Enquirer newspaper he broke 
forth into more vehement denunciations of Hinduism than ever. Still, as 
to all positive truth in religion, his mind was utterly blank. At a later pe- 
riod, he thus expressed himself :— " At that time I was perfectly regardless 
of God, and never took the trouble of thinking of him. This ingratitude, 
however, was overcome with kindness by Him • for, though I never did 
even seek after the nature and attributes of my great Creator, yet, as a 
merciful Father, he forgot not me. Though I neglected him, yet he had 



627 



compassion on me ; and, without my knowledge or inclination, created, so 
to speak, a circumstance that impelled me to seek after Him." 

The circumstance here alluded to was simply this — that, unknown to 
him, I had requested a mutual friend to urge him to come to my house 
to hear what I had to say respecting recent events. This plan was adopted 
to prevent the suspicions, alarms, or misconception that might be produced 
by my visiting his abode in so peculiar a conjuncture. And my purpose 
was, not merely to express my sympathy with him, but— taking a proper 
advantage of his difficulties and sufferings,— to press with all earnestness 
upon his mind the absolute necessity of obtaining someichat to sustain his 
own spirit in the hour of trial, — somewhat also to communicate to those 
around, in place of that which he laboured so mightily to destroy. 

His own brief but simple account of the matter is as follows : " One 
afternoon, a friend of mine asked me to accompany him to the Rev. Mr 
D., who never lost sight of us in all our wanderings. I complied with 
his request, and went to this gentleman's house with him. Mr D. received 
me with Christian kindness, and inquired of the state in which we all 
were. He openly expressed his sentiments on what we were about ; and 
while he approved of one half of our exertions, he lamented the other. He 
was glad of our proceedings against error ; but sincerely sorry at our ne- 
glecting the truth. I told him it was not our fault that we were not 
Christians ; we did not believe in Christianity, and could not therefore con- 
sistently profess it. The reverend gentleman, with great calmness and com- 
posure, said, that it was true that I could not be blamed for my not believing 
in Christianity, so long as I was ignorant of it; but that I was certainly 
guilty of serious neglect for not inquiring into its evidences and doctrines. 
This word < inquiring; was so uttered as to produce an impression upon 
me which I cannot sufficiently well describe. I considered upon my lonely 
condition— cut off from men to whom I was bound by natural ties, and 
thought that nothing but a determination on the subject of religion could 
give me peace and comfort. And I was so struck with Mr D.'s words, 
that we instantly resolved to hold weekly meetings at his house for reli- 
gious instruction and discussion." 

On this occasion, happening to have a copy of Gillies' Historical Collec- 
tions in my possession, I read several passages out of it, to show how it 
was the belief of positive truth which sustained the great martyrs and re- 
formers of the West in the midst of cruel sufferings and death ; and how 
they never destroyed error without being able at once to point to a nobler 
substitute in the temple of truth. This work, which contained so much 
peculiarly adapted to his case, he carried along with him for farther per- 
usal in his own abode. 

In the way of holding the proposed weekly meetings, obstacles thick- 
ened on every side. Europeans, bearing the name of Christ— Socinians, 
Deists, and Infidels of every grade,— conscious of the importance of the 
crisis that had arisen as regarded the future faith of the educated natives,— 
plied all their arts and wiles to prevent the current of emancipated thought 
from running into the channel of primitive apostolic Christianity. 



628 



On the part of the bigoted Hindus, a deadly opposition was manifested. 
« Persecution is high," remarked the Enquirer newspaper, " for we have 
deserted the shrine of Hinduism. The bigots are violent because we obey 
not the calls of superstition. Our conscience is satisfied we are right ; we 
must persevere in our career. If opposition is violent and insurmountable, 
let us rather aspire to martyrdom than desert a single inch of the ground 
we have possessed. Conspiracies are daily formed to hurt us in every 
possible way. Circulars stuffed with falsehoods have been issued to de- 
fame our character ; and all cruelties which the rage of malice and the 
heat of fanaticism can invent, have been planned to be exercised upon us. 
But we will stand persecution. A people can never be reformed without 
noise and confusion ; the absurd prejudices of the Hindus can never be 
eradicated without violent persecution against the reformers. "We have 
undertaken this task. And shall fear, — the quality of the coward and the 
attribut e of the guilty, — be our guide ? Does not history testify that Luther, 
alone and unsupported, blew a blast which shook the mansions of error 
and prejudice % Did not Knox, opposed as he was by bigots and fanatics, 
cany the cause of reformation into Scotland ? Blessed are we, that we 
are to reform the Hindu nation. We have blown the trumpet, and we 
must continue to blow on. We have attacked Hinduism, and will perse- 
vere in attacking it, until we finally seal our triumph." 

Indeed, so effectually did he now blow his trumpet, that in order to 
escape personal assault, and perhaps murder, he was compelled, on the 
28th September, suddenly to quit his new residence ; and in all Calcutta, 
not a native dared to shelter him. At last, in a European lodging-house, 
he found a temporary asylum. Thither followed many of his staunchest 
friends and coadjutors — who also had been variously abused, insulted, and 
maltreated ; — one having very narrowly escaped death by poison ; and an- 
other insanity, by the administration of a peculiar drug. 

Having learned, towards the evening of the following day, what had 
transpired, I did not hesitate a moment in proceeding to the new rendez- 
vous. There I found a large number assembled, pouring forth torrents of 
indignation against the bigots ; and vowing ample revenge, not on their per- 
sons, but on their superstitious faith . If each had been armed that night with 
thunderbolts, they would all have been hurled at the fabric of Hinduism. 
" Destroy Hinduism, because it is absurd, and wicked, and false," was the 
universal watchword ; but beyond this they did not, they could not go. 
Hours of vehemence were spent in contending and debating about plans 
for the accomplishment of their object. The establishment of " A Refor- 
mation Society" was the favourite scheme. Public meetings and ad- 
dresses were contemplated ; — the press was to be put into more active 
operation ; — pamphlets and tracts were to be written, and freely circulated 
in thousands. But as almost all of them, in consequence of their apostasy, 
were disinherited, how were the necessary expenses to be defrayed ? Hap- 
pily, one of the number had large property of his own, so secured as to be un- 
assailable ; and in the generosity of new-born and indignant zeal, he vowed 
he would devote the whole of it to farther the cause of Hindu reformation. 



629 



Again and again did I endeavour to impress upon their minds the ne- 
cessity of pausing in their intended career of violence. It was urged that 
their Society could not be true to its name. It would not be one for 
radical reform, but simply for radical destruction ;— not a Reformation, but 
an Eradication Society ;— a Society for levelling all things, and recasting 
nothing into a purer form. On every one of their papers, and pamphlets, 
and acts,— on their very brows, on frontlets between the eyes, every sane 
person would be provoked to read, as if legibly inscribed, the epigramatic 
sarcasm of the English poet, — 

Formless themselves, reforming do pretend, 
As if confusion could disorder mend. 
Again and again was their attention directed to the Reformation in Eu- 
rope, as the great pattern which they should copy, — a reformation of 
Avhose remote benefits they were then partaking, in the improved liter- 
ature and science which they had imbibed, and in that British philanthropy 
which laboured to aid them in casting aside the shackles of a degrading 
superstition and a domineering priesthood. The reformers of the 16th cen- 
tury were armed not only with power to destroy, but with power to re- 
build. With one arm they mowed down the bulwarks of error ; with 
the other they were enabled to rear the temple of truth. For every par- 
ticle of rubbish which they removed, they were prepared to offer in ex- 
change a pearl of great price— richer far than all the pearls on the Indian 
shores. All this was contrasted at length with the position of our Hindu 
reformers. These could only destroy and lay waste— they had nothing to 
substitute— nothing to offer in exchange. So that, even if they succeeded 
to the extent of their wishes, their progress could only resemble that of 
the hurricane or earthquake — whose course is ever marked by an undis- 
tinguished mass of ruins ; and in whose train ever resounds the voice of 
lamentation and woe. 

The perfect counterpart of their intended reformation was pointed out 
in the origin, progress, and terrible issue of French illumination and re- 
form in the last century. There, was a beacon, enough to scare the most 
reckless innovator. Even Gibbon, one of their own favourite authors, 
was appalled at the effects of the infidel reform in France in its very 
earliest manifestations ;— so appalled that he denounced the scheme of 
abolishing any long established religion, and actually resolved to write a 
dialogue, supposed to be carried on in the shades below, between Lucian, 
Erasmus, and Voltaire,— causing that reforming triumvirate unanimously 
to condemn the attempt to destroy any national superstition in any region of 
the globe, even though it were as intolerant as the Inquisition itself. And 
certainly it were the height of madness to wade through anarchy and 
blood, merely to supplant the social idolatry of superstition by the savagely 
anti-social idolatries of a Hydra-headed infidelity. 

After several hours of discussion, it was at last conceded, that their 
scheme of reformation could not be complete, unless they were prepared 
to direct their countrymen to something which might be more than 
an equivalent for what they wished to destroy. But where and how was 



630 



this equivalent to be found \ " Come and see," was my reply. The equi- 
valent which the Reformers of the 16th century supplied in place of Popish 
idolatry and superstition, was primitive unadulterated Christianity. And 
does not the experience of three centuries in the West prove how nobly it 
has answered the purpose ? Does not the history of the world prove that 
pure Christianity has been the grand instrument of real civilization— the 
best friend of science and art— the fruitful parent of civil and religious 
liberty ? Now, Christianity in its purest form is at present in our keeping ; 
and we are ready to impart the invaluable treasure to you. Once become 
possessed of it, and you may reform as rapidly and extensively as you 
please. With the one hand you may wield the scythe of destruction, if 
with the other you can strew around you what millions of the most en- 
lightened men that ever lived have pronounced * unsearchable riches." 
At all events, come and inquire ; come and examine ; come and see. If in 
the end you discover what will commend itself to your understanding and 
conscience — good and well. A cup of blessedness will be your own por- 
tion, and it will overflow in a stream of blessing towards your deluded 
countrymen. If you should fail in the discovery, you will not be in a 
worse condition than you are now • and by sincerely making the attempt, 
conscience will be dispossessed of an upbraiding sting. It may be in your 
power now to do for India what the Reformers of the 16th century achieved 
for Europe,— your names, like theirs, may mingle with the hosannahs of 
all posterity,— descending as an inheritance of greatness, and as rallying 
watchwords of patriotism to latest ages. Or, by your neglect, and way- 
wardness, and misconduct now, your names may be doomed to perpetual 
infamy in Hindustan, and descend in the same category of execration as 
the Voltaires and De L'Amberts, and whole ignoble army of destructives 
in revolutionary France. 

Moved at length by these and similar representations, they resolved to 
attend at my house every Tuesday evening, for the purpose of religious 
instruction and discussion. Hence the origin of the second attempt to 
establish a course of Lectures on the Evidences and Doctrines of Natural 
and Revealed Religion, for the special benefit of the Educated Natives— 
an attempt which, in the face of numberless counteractive causes, and 
vexatious annoyances on the part both of Hindus and Europeans, was 
soon commenced, carried on, and eventually crowned, through the Divine 
blessing, with the most pleasing success. 

And here I cannot but remark, in passing, the singular overruling 
of an all- wise Providence, in suffering the first attempt, on the preceding 
year— though begun under the most favourable auspices,— to be wholly 
arrested. The mystery was now clearly revealed in the glass of revolving 
time. At the former period the plan was allowed to be subverted, because 
none of the parties were sufficiently prepared for it. The educated natives were 
not prepared. The greater part were trammelled by College regulations ; 
all were overawed by parents and friends ; none were seriously actu- 
ated by sufficiently influential motives stimulating them to persevere. 
Now, however, numbers had left the College j some were ejected from 



631 



their homes, and excommunicated from the fellowship of Hinduism ; many 
were disciplined by persecution into a more sober and contemplative habi- 
tude of mind ; and, what above all constituted an entirely new element in 
their mental being, they seemed overpowered with the conviction, that 
simply to destroy was not enough— that to entitle and enable them to de- 
stroy with effect, they must have something to substitute. In Calcutta, 
the first complete schism that had ever taken place in the very heart of 
the citadel of Hinduism, had now occurred— a schism arising in the midst 
of an agitation which threatened to shake the entire fabric to its base ;— 
and the breach was absolutely irreparable. Heretofore the schismatics 
were amply satisfied with hunting down error ; now, circumstances arose 
which overwhelmed them with a sense of the necessity of seriously endea- 
vouring to discover truth. Hence altogether, were they infinitely better 
prepared to hear with attention, and to examine with honest candour. 

To this subject the Enquirer newspaper of 7th October thus adverts :— 
" Our discussions have hitherto been too general j it is time to descend 
into particulars. A Christian missionary very wisely told us on Tuesday 
last, in an interview, that the present time is a very important crisis ; and 
that the future happiness or misery of a vast portion of the Hindus de- 
pends upon it. We accordingly propose to let the Enquirer be devoted 
particularly to the propagation of truth, and the subduing of error and 
prejudices. It may be asked, what is the truth we here mean to pro- 
pagate ? Our reply is, that we, for the present, mean to avoid positively 
recommending any religious doctrine to our countrymen. Whatever we 
have satisfactorily discovered to be error, we will teach them to reject ; 
what we may hereafter feel as truth, we will spare no pains to induce 
them to adopt, We will, in the meantime, be employed in an inquiry 
after truth ; and if, by the time the Hindu mind will be free from pre- 
judice, and capable of appreciating truth, we make any progress in our 
investigation, we will, in spite of the greatest persecution, and most dif- 
ficult opposition, be at the service of the Hindus. We are indebted to the 
counsel of a reverend gentleman for giving us a spirit of inquiry ; and we 
will, under no consideration, fail to benefit by his counsels. Let our friends 
now state what they respectively feel as truth ; and let us, in the sincere 
spirit of patient investigation, discuss what may be offered to our consi- 
deration. Let us have all a fair field, and adopt what reason and judg- 
ment may dictate." 

Such was the subdued and rational tone in which all the leading re- 
formers resolved to enter on the important investigation of truth. As in- 
dicative of the continuance of this softened and improved temper, we may 
quote from the Enquirer of the 4th November the following passage :— 
* We feel that theological truth is the most important of all, because it 
influences our conduct through life as moral and social beings. We are 
ready to inquire into the nature of all creeds, however superstitious- 
much more of Christianity, which has civilized a whole continent. We 
know that a sincere Christian cannot possibly be a bad man ; we are far 
from being unwilling to be instructed in its nature. A reverend gentleman 



632 



of the Presbyterian sect has undertaken the task of unfolding to us the 
nature of this set of doctrines. We attend him every Tuesday in the even- 
ing, and avail ourselves of his benevolent services with feelings of thank- 
fulness. Whether we shall be convinced of all that he says or not, it is 
impossible for us to predict at present. We have entered into the inquiry 
with a sincere love of truth ; and this is all we could do. We have per- 
ceived Hinduism is folly, and we speak against it. If we be not convinced 
of the truth of Christianity, we cannot possibly do any mischief ; for we 
are only clearing the obstacles that lie in the way of its propagation, and 
preparing the mind to receive it if true. We are communicating to our 
countrymen only those subjects about which we are settled. What we 
are not settled in, we are silent about ; inquiring into, and examining in 
the meantime, the nature of the doctrines which we know have humanised 
almost the whole world, and raised man in the scale of reason and of civil- 



ization.' 



Having thus briefly narrated the circumstances in which the second 
attempt to commend Christianity to the Educated Natives of Calcutta ori- 
ginated, as also the temper in which the majority seemed disposed to enter 
on the investigation, I shall now briefly glance at the commencement of 
the course along which it was conducted. To enter at large into the sub- 
ject is impossible. It were to write a volume of no ordinary size on 
Christian Evidence and Doctrine, as well as to furnish answers to all ima- 
ginable objections. For, immediately after the delivery of each Lecture, 
aU were allowed freely to canvass every topic embraced in it ; and the 
consequent discussions were often continued for hours. During the 
week that intervened between the different Lectures, all in whose minds 
doubts and difficulties still lingered, were invited as often as they pleased 
to a personal interview ; or, if they preferred it, they were encouraged, m 
writing, to put all manner of queries, and to demand all manner of explana- 
tion— while I engaged, in writing, to respond to every query and demand. 
These intervenient discussions, oral and written, occupied much time ; but, 
by thus satisfying the minds of inquirers, we were enabled to make pro- 
portionably rapid progress with the weekly Lectures. At the first open- 
ing, from forty to sixty professing inquirers after truth, on an average, at- 
tended ; and for a long while the greater part persevered with unvarying 
regularity. Most of them, to their credit be it recorded, continued to 
manifest throughout a becoming temper. Several of them, however, were 
more than troublesome— proud, forward, rude, boisterous, and often grossly 
insulting. Still, calmness, patience, and perseverance, gradually softened 
down all asperities. The novelty of the scene long continued to attract 
numbers of all classes, Hindu, East Indian, and European,— as spectators. 

As to any actual knowledge of religious truth, all were alike ignorant. 
One of the leading members of the Enquiring fraternity, afterwards thus 
described his religious condition :— « We disbelieved," wrote he, « in Hin- 
duism ; and we no more kept our sentiments behind the curtain. But we 



633 



knew nothing of God. Some of us actually thought the being of God an im- 
possibility ; the rest doubted, or disbelieved it ; but never took the trouble 
of seriously inquiring into the subject." In suchastate of mind,— as has been 
already stated in an address before the General Assembly,— it was found 
absolutely impracticable to advance a single step without first determining 
the question as to the Being of a God. 

Some believed the being of God to be impossible, and thought they 
could prove the impossibility. Instead of wasting time in unravelling 
mere verbal sophisms, I proceeded at once to show, after the manner of 
Foster, in his celebrated Essays, that however much an inquirer might, 
for want of evidence, be constrained to return the verdict of " not proven," 
It was demonstrable that no finite being could ever return the verdict 
either of " disproven," or « impossible,"— that it was demonstrable that 
no one without the attributes of ubiquity and omniscience, could pretend 
to rise to the " height of the great argument," which would entitle him 
absolutely to deny either the being or the possibility of a God. The way 
was thus cleared of any antecedent impossibility which might bar all po- 
sitive proof. 

It was at once conceded, that to those who rejected the testimony of 
tradition,— refused to listen to the voice of their fellows,— and never had 
their attention directed to the observation of nature's mechanisms, the 
proposition, " There is a God," did not announce itself as self-evident — 
did not immediately demonstrate its own verity to the understanding, like 
the universal theorem, « The whole is greater than its part." No more 
would the proposition, « There is a sun in the firmament, the glorious 
source of light to worlds," announce itself as self-evident to the man who 
was born and brought up in a dark cave of the earth. In this latter case, 
it must be palpable to every one, that the absence of conviction arose not 
from any real w.ant of sufficient evidence as to the existence of a sun, or 
any real incapacity to discern the evidence on the part of him who was im- 
prisoned in the cavern. No. Millions could testify that the sun shone re- 
splendent in the heavens ; and the caverned man was endowed with organs 
of vision quite unimpaired. But conviction was absent, simply because the 
organs were not brought in contact with their corresponding object. Let a 
glimmering taper be introduced into the subterranean vault, and instantly 
the correspondence between the eye and the corporeal light is elicited. The 
present reality of the latter is acknowledged as soon as it is seen, and its 
singular property in manifesting surrounding objects joyously recognised. 
Let the man next be raised to the surface of earth. Even should the glo- 
rious luminary of day be shrouded in clouds, what a scene would burst upon 
the astonished stranger ! In his cell, the tiny lamp not only manifested 
its own presence, but the presence of other objects— though feebly, and 
within very limited distances. But now he beholds numberless objects, 
extending to the distance, not of a few feet, but of many miles— having' 
their lineaments exhibited with a transparent vividness of which before 
he had no conception. Would he require any one to inform him that 
here too was light ? Impossible. Light it must be ; though, judging from 



634 



its effects, it must proceed from a source transcendently greater and more 
glorious than that which dimly revealed the recesses of the cavern. And 
what if the cloudy curtain which overspread the face of heaven were sud- 
denly drawn aside, and the king of day shone forth in bright effulgence, — 
diffusing tenfold greater brilliancy over hill and dale, and woods and 
plains, and murmuring streams ! Would he now require any farther 
proof of the proposition, that " there is a sun in the firmament, the source 
of light to a world whose radiant beauties it seemed less to reveal than to 
create ? " No. It would exhibit the surest credentials of its existence in 
the surpassing splendour wherewith it dazzled the appropriate organ of 
vision. 

In like manner, it was shown that there might be numberless higher 
truths which might, to the mind of a particular individual, appear more than 
dubious, not on account of any real deficiency in the evidence of their 
reality, but solely because the discursive faculty, whose office it is to con- 
template them, had never been brought fairly in contact either with the 
truths or their evidence. Of this description might be the proposition re- 
lating to the being of a God, the Maker of all things. Supposing those 
present knew nothing of God, or of his works as evidencing his being 
and perfections ; supposing also their attention had not been directed 
to man in his specific character as the ingenious fabricator of various me- 
chanisms, — their situation, in reference to the first proposition, would be 
exactly similar to that of the man in the dark cave in reference to the 
second. 

Their attention was therefore first directed to man as an artificer, and 
to his works as exhibiting contrivance or design. Waiving altogether the 
abstract investigation relating to the nature of the connection between 
an harmonious disposition of parts subservient to certain uses, and de- 
sign or contrivance implying the ordination of an intelligent mind, a num- 
ber of mechanisms with which they were quite familiar, were analysed. 
From this review it was freely admitted, that in the works of man a re- 
gular series of relations, or a nice adaptation of parts, conspiring towards 
an end or purpose, did necessarily imply the presence of designing skill, — 
and that designing skill was one of the most distinguishing attributes of 
an intelligent mind. 

Having been once thoroughly familiar with the import of the declaration, 
that, in reference to all human mechanisms, a suitableness of means 
to an end — an exact order and disposition of parts, mutually relating to 
each other, and concurring in the production of one common ascertainable 
result,— irresistibly forces upon the mind the impression of design, and de- 
sign the impression of intelligence, — their situation might be compared to 
that of the man in the cave when the glimmering taper was introduced, 
which gave him the first conception of what was meant by light, and its 
power of manifesting surrounding objects. 

Having all of them studied Natural Philosophy, they were next re- 
minded of the general principles of Optics. They were reminded how 
gradual, and after what a lapse of ages, the properties of light, and the 



635 



laws of its transmission and refraction, were discovered. They were re- 
minded of some of the mechanical contrivances that have resulted from 
an intimate acquaintance with such laws and properties. In reference to 
the principal of these— the telescope— they were reminded of the progres- 
sive improvements in its construction, from the rude fabrication of Galileo 
to the latest achromatic invention. Rough sketches on large sheets of 
pasteboard were then exhibited, to represent more vividly the leading 
stages of improvement, and impress their minds more strongly with the 
conviction, that each new suggestion ran parallel with every fresh acces- 
sion of knowledge, and combined with the superior skill and ingenuity of 
the philosophic artificer. In all these cases it was admitted, with the 
most unhesitating assent, that the optical instruments, in the admirable 
disposition of their parts, and their apt subserviency to the end in view, 
furnished a complete demonstration of superior knowledge, wisdom, and 
counsel, on the part of the original inventor, and subsequent improvers. 
It was allowed that they announced, with resistless force, the presence and 
direction of an intelligent designing cause. 

After this, was presented a drawing of what might be termed the highest 
and most perfect order of telescope. This, as in the case of those already 
shown, was seen to possess different lenses of such figure, and in such rela- 
tive position as to bring the rays of light to a proper point for the formation 
of a visual image. It was described as possessing in perfection the chiefest 
of late improvements, viz., a combination of lenses composed of materials 
of different refracting powers, to correct the confusion arising from the se- 
paration of colours, in rays passing through one homogeneous substance. 
Besides this, it was described as possessing a piece of exquisite mechan- 
ism, by means of which it could adapt itself to different degrees of light 
—enlarging or narrowing the outer aperture of the tube according as the' 
light was deficient, or the reverse. What was more singular still, so deli- 
cate was its sensibility as to the presence of light, that it dilated or con- 
tracted itself without needing any new adjustment on the part of him who 
used the instrument. And, to crown the whole, it was shown that— where- 
as, hitherto, for the sake of adapting the instrument, as demanded by the 
laws which invariably regulate the transmission of light, to objects at dif- 
ferent distances, the contrivance was, to substitute other lenses, and 
shorten or elongate the tube with the hand or screw-that instead of 
such a slow, awkward, and clumsy process, this last and most perfect 
of telescopes was so delicately constructed, that by means of a subtile and 
refined mechanism, it could, without any manual application, exactly ad- 
just itself to every diversity of distance. Up to the two last statements, 
all was distinctly understood and cheerfully assented to. But the an- 
nouncement of these was evidently received with a smile of incredulity 
No such improvements in the manufacture of telescopes had ever been 
heard of, and the possibility of them the mind could not grasp. Hence 
arose the incredulity, not because too large an inference on the score of 
designing skill had been deduced from a consideration of these exquisite 
mechanisms, but because the degree of designing skill implied in them, 



636 



seemed too great to "be within the reach of human intelligence and inge- 
nuity. 

This was precisely the spontaneous confession which the lecturer was 
most desirous of calling forth. And when it was suggested, by this one 
and the other, that they would rather see the instrument itself in actual 
operation, than witness a delineation of it on paper, accompanied by a mere 
verbal explanation, it was at once replied, that they were possessed of an 
inestimable treasure, of which they did not seem themselves to be aware 
— since each of them, in reality, had already a pair of these telescopic in- 
ventions. For the singular instrument now described as constructed ac- 
cording to the most perfect knowledge of the laws and properties of light, 
and endowed with self-adjusting mechanical contrivances so exquisite as 
to appear almost beyond the wit of man to imagine, and altogether be- 
yond his manual dexterity to execute, was none other than the human 
eye ! The sudden announcement respecting an organ with the use of which 
they had been so long familiar, without ever thinking of the exquisitely 
skilful and scientific construction which alone fitted it to subserve so many 
invaluable purposes to man, did not fail to excite a pleasurable though 
perplexing surprise. 

Who then contrived and executed the mechanism of the eye— a me- 
chanism so incomparably perfect, that to imitate even a part of it required 
a knowledge of the properties of light and of the laws of vision, which 
existed no where in the world till five thousand years rolled over 
successive generations of its inhabitants,— to imitate one half of which 
rudely, and at a humble distance, has made more than one Galileo im- 
mortal,— and to imitate the other half in any way, however imperfect, has 
wholly outbaffled the utmost stretch of human skill, though backed by the 
brilliant triumphs of modern science ? It was not, it could not be, man 
himself. An intelligence superior to that of man must have conceived 
and fashioned it. That superior Intelligence we denominate God. The 
effect of so simply deduced a conclusion seemed such as, for a moment 
at least, by its clear light, to banish Atheism into congenial night. No 
additional illustration of the evidence, from manifest intention and design, 
for the Being of a God, could render its nature more clear, or its force 
more conclusive. Other examples might be enumerated in thousands,— 
but each would only consist of a simple repetition of the same fundamen- 
tal principle of evidence,— each would only furnish a distinct and inde- 
pendent corroborative testimony. The modes and objects alone would 
vary ; the simple elements of proof would be identically the same in all. 
No new argument could be advanced,— each new instance reiterating the 
same argument in another form. A congeries of separate testimonies 
might be accumulated— as endless as the objects of the universe are end- 
lessly multiplied. In point of strict logical conclusion, it would therefore 
answer no end to heap up exemplifications. But in order to affect and 
impress the mind more deeply, the amplification of the subject was thus 
adverted to.— If such be the inevitable conclusion from the examina- 
tion of a single organ in the human frame, what must be thought when 



637 



We survey the rest of this wondrous microcosm ? If the human frame 
be such an assemblage of contrivances— all indicative of a reach of 
intelligence which the collective wisdom of all men in all ages, far 
from rivalling, cannot but very remotely approximate,— what shall be 
said when we think of the countless myriads of organised bein-s, ani- 
mate and inanimate,— all displaying similar traces of designing" skill? 
When we observe the apparatus of instruments, subservient to im- 
portant known uses, with winch minute and microscopic atoms are fur- 
nished— the singular combinations displayed in forming larger portions of 
mechanised matter— the exquisite arrangement of particular parts in con- 
stituting higher separate existences, throughout every portion of nature— 
the admirable distribution of individual beings in composing varieties of 
systems— the marvellous relation and subordination of system to system— 
the less absorbed in a greater, which itself is comprehended in another 
that rises higher, and that in a higher still, in endless progression-dis- 
playing an absolute « infinity of designs," and uniting the most perfect 
harmony with endless diversities throughout the illimitable regions of 
space :— surely, as the result of such contemplation, we cannot but ex- 
claim,— Herein is wisdom ; herein is designing intelligence, which, from 
our utter mcapability of gauging more than the surface of its unfathom- 
able depths, may well be termed « infinite." If, iu the case of him who 
was raised from his subterranean residence when the sky was overspread 
with clouds, he still saw a prodigious multitude of objects manifested with 
greater lustre than before, would he not laugh to scorn the suggestion that 
this more comprehensive and perfect manifestation was not the effect of 
light ? If it be admitted in the case of thousands' of products around us, that 
an exact order and disposition of parts invariably argues the wisdom and 
skill of an intelligent mind, must not the like admission be made in refer- 
ence to all products whatsoever which exhibit equal signatures of wisdom 
and skill ? Must not the necessity of such admission become demonstrable 
m proportion as the evidences of design become more conspicuous » If 
the lesser prints and footsteps of design potently convince of the presence 
of a designing intelligence, how much more the greater and more manifest 
characters of a skilful contrivance ? And if the organised mechanisms in 
what have been termed « the works of nature," are found in number, va- 
riety, and degree, infinitely to surpass the most curious, and skilful, and 
elaborate contrivances of human ingenuity, sharpened by a knowledge of 
all science, and the practice of aU art ; are we not bound, in argumentative 
consistency, or rather in rigid mathematical conclusiveness, to refer the 
inconceivably greater multitude of vastly more perfect contrivances to 
an intelligent mind, transcendently higher and more glorious than that of 
man ? If here we were only enabled at once to lift the veil-to draw aside 
the curtain-and let in the full blaze of revelation, what a spectacle would 
present itself to the loftiest intellectual vision ? God, the supreme de- 
signing intelligence, would not then exhibit himself merely in dim subor- 
dinate reflections from the comparatively obscure mirror of his works, but 
snme forth, m the peerless combination and ineffable splendour of His na- 



638 



tural and moral attributes, through the transparent medium of His own 
word. And in such a flood of self-evidencing light would He manifest 
himself to all the expanded powers and purified sensibilities of the soul, 
that any longer to doubt of His being, would be as impossible as to call in 
question the existence of the king of day when he suddenly bursts upon 
gazing multitudes, in more than royal magnificence, from behind a thick 
canopy of clouds ! 

But though a series of statements, of which the preceding is a very 
meagre analysis, seemed to produce a momentary conviction, it was soon 
found that it was neither so deep nor permanent as the demonstrable or 
rather intuitive nature of the evidence was calculated to effect. The rea- 
son soon became obvious. The minds of all were overladen with hos- 
tile prepossessions and misconceptions which it was scarcely possible all 
at once to eradicate, so as to put them in the most favourable position for 
discerning the evidence. A favourite maxim of theirs was, that on the 
subject of religion there neither were nor could be any first principles, on 
which a conclusive argument could be founded. And this, absurd as it 
was, had been so often repeated, that it had almost assimilated itself with 
their rational nature. Again, as some of them afterwards honestly con- 
fessed, far from approaching the subject with impartiality or even indif- 
ference, they laboured under the worst and most inveterate of all preju- 
dices—that which is based on interest. Their secret vmh was to find the 
theorem relative to the being of God, incapable of any proof. And when 
a strong predisposition is on one side, it is easy to overleap all the fences 
of reason to escape conviction. Besides, all had been from the days of child- 
hood, thoroughly familiarized with the more patent phenomena of external 
nature,— and these constituted the elements of their knowledge wholly un- 
associated with an idea or even a surmise of their exhibiting a numberless 
series of adaptations of means to ends, indicative of the presence of a 
designing mind. In their own sacred books, the Supreme Being is said at 
the time of manifesting the universe to assume the attribute of omni- 
science,— but it is that of momentary simple knowledge. He is never 
spoken of as wise, in the sense of being the author of skilful designs,— 
nor are his works ever appealed to either as proofs or illustrations of the 
operation of creative wisdom. Again, though they had greatly exercised 
their ratiocinative and dialectic powers, they had almost wholly ne- 
glected the cultivation of that sense of resemblance and analogy, on the 
vividness of which the intuitive force of the evidence for design so great- 
ly depends. They had so accustomed themselves to metaphysical subtil- 
ties and strings of verbalisms or syllogistic reasoning, that they delighted 
to soar into regions where common sense would be an impertinent intru- 
der. They were thus tempted to overlook the grand aphorism— that 
all valid reasoning necessarily implies certain primary intuitive principles, 
themselves unproved,— and only the more indubitable because antece- 
dent to all argument and incapable of all proof. They had so inverted 
the order of nature, and elaborately artificialized the grounds of con- 
viction, as to suppose there could be no certainty except as the conclusion 



639 



of a long chain of consecutive ratiocination. So that in this state of mind 
the very simplicity and directness of the demonstration from palpable 
marks of design, only subjected it to the gravest suspicions. They had 
become acquainted with many of the laws and properties of nature in the 
study of natural philosophy. But they never once rose beyond secondary 
and physical causes, which appeared to them rolling on in a perennial flow 
as if under the influence of some blind unintelligent necessity. The very 
regularity of all the successions of state in the system of created tiling 
lulled them into an uninquisitive moody indifference. Their attention 
had uever once been directed to the admirable mechanisms resulting from 
skilful combination and adjustment of the laws and properties of material 
substances-significant of forethought, intention, design, intelligence 

Owing to the entire novelty of the subject, and the want of a prepara- 
tory and appropriate mental culture, a strange confusion seemed to enshroud 
it, in this respect, viz., that in the works of human art, their origin and pro- 
gress, could be accurately observed and understood, as they advanced in 
the hands of the artificer ;-whereas in the works of nature, their origin 
seemed lost in the recesses of time ; their progress could be but partially 
surveyed ; and the supposed artificer never made himself visible It was 
insisted on, that all considerations connected with time, and mode, and in- 
strumentality, were but accessories wholly irrelevant to the point in view 
The simple point was :-Here is a piece of mechanism,-Does it subserve 
any useful purpose that is distinctly comprehensible ? Are the means em- 
ployed for the accomplishment of that purpose distinctly comprehensible 
too ? And are these means so skilfully adapted to the intended end, that if 
known to be designed by man, they could not fail to extort an instantane- 
ous and involuntary acknowledgement and admiration of the high intelli- 
gence of their Author ? If so, how could the actual operation of a design- 
ing mind, whether seen or unseen, be for a moment denied without the 
most egregious inconsistency? What would the denial of it amount to 
but to the ridiculous conclusion, that design does necessarily imply intelli- 
gence where it suits not a man's fancy or interest to say the contrary « 
That which illumines a dark vault is admitted to be light, because the 
lamp whence it proceeds is visible to the eye. That which illumines the 
world m a cloudy day, is not light, because to the eye the source of it is 
not visible ! 

From the operation of these and other causes, there arose, to be dis- 
cussed durmg the ensuing week, a whole host of objections and evasions 

By some lt was attempted to get quit of the mechanisms of nature alto- 
gether by revmng the Indian doctrine of illusion, or the idealism of the 
Berkeleyan School ! It was shown that, by the fundamental principles of 
e.ther system, however much the existence of a material universe might 
be domed the Bemg of a God was not only admitted, but demonstrated ; 
and that the apphcafon of metaphysics at all to determine the reality or 
unreal, ty of an external world, was j mt as incommensurate as would be 
the application of a barometer to measure the instead of the height 



640 



By others, recourse was had to the doctrine of a casual coalition of 
atoms— a doctrine propounded and elaborated into a system by the founder 
of one of the heretical schools of India, ages before the name of Epicurus 
was heard of in Greece ! It was shown at length, that the ancient 
authors of this fictitious scheme might be so far excused, on the ground 
that they really knew little or nothing of the wondrous contrivances ex- 
hibited in the frame and structure of organized matter. But since modern 
observation and science had unveiled the beauty and perfection of so many 
of those natural mechanisms, the folly of the man who would refer all to a 
verbal inanity, designated chance, could be proved infinitely to exceed the 
delirium which would assert of the Government House in Calcutta, that all 
the particles of the varied materials of which it is composed,— brick, mor- 
tar, marble, brass, iron, lead, timber, paint, glass— that all, dancing and 
roving about in vacancy, once happily met, and fortuitously arranged them- 
selves into those commodious proportions and ornamental designs, which 
render the viceregal residence the noblest edifice in the city of palaces. 

Others resorted to the figment of an infinite series of sequences in the 
works of nature, without an eternal First Cause. It was shown that this 
hvpothesis involved a self-contradiction. Either, as has been pointedly 
observed, either "some one part of this infinite series has not been succes- 
sive to any other, or else all the several parts of it have been successive. 
If gome one part of it has not been successive, then there must have been a 
first part which annihilates the supposition of its infinity. If all the seve- 
ral parts of it have been successive, then they must all have been once fu- 
ture— & time may therefore be conceived when none of them existed— and 
if so, the termination of the chain may be distinctly recognised ; and this 
too destroys the supposition of its infinity." 

All these and other grounds of evasion having been at length abandon- 
ed, one last refuge yet remained. With a subtilty characteristic of Indian 
metaphysics, some represented as follows :— Well, granting the principle 
that contrivance implies a contriver, design a designer ; granting the 
fact, that the world exhibits multiform contrivances and designs ; grant- 
ing 'also the conclusion that there must be a great contriving and design- 
ing mind, the architect of the fabric ; must it not follow that the harmony 
and nice adjustment of parts and attributes— such as power, volition, 
knowledge, and wisdom, indispensable to the forecasting and fashioning 
of so many wonderful contrivances, necessarily implies adaptation and de- 
sign t And if, in things visible, adaptation and design necessarily indicate 
a designer, may there not be a higher designing cause which conceived 
and formed the invisible Author of the present universe— and a higher 
still, the framer of that,_and so on backwards to infinity, without ever 
reaching an eternal First Cause ? 

It was, first of all, replied with Paley, that the admission of an intelli- 
gent Author of the world served every practical purpose, since the power 
and the wisdom exhibited in its formation, vastly exceeded the grasp ot 
human capacity-that to the wisdom which could plan, and the power 
which could execute so stupendous a system, no possible limits could be 



(541 



set— that these attributes, therefore, were infinite, (and consequently be- 
longed to an infinite essence,) in the only sense in which such finite "crea- 
tures as we are can ever conceive infinity at all— and that it were not less 
irrational than impious to withhold our homage from the Divine Archi- 
tect, of whose being and attributes all creation is acknowledged to be a 
witness with ten thousand tongues, on the score of some supposed abstract 
metaphysical possibility that there may be an ascending series of higher 
architects, respecting whose being all creation is dumb, and whose exist- 
ence revelation flatly negatives. But apart from this practical solution, it 
was shown that no argumentative advantage was gained from the hypo- 
thesis, since an infinite series of invisible designing causes really involved 
the same absurdity and self-contradiction as an infinite series of visible 
undesigning causes. 

Finding, however, that we were getting more and more entangled in a 
labyrinth wherein we might roam for ever without approaching nearer 
the wished-for goal, we resolved, on the next public occasion, to present 
the whole subject in an entirely new point of view. From the peculiar 
state of mind into which these inquirers had wrought themselves, it now 
became palpable that in their particular case the primary thing wanted 
—the rudimental desideratum— was a firm lodgment of the proposition that 
there must be a First Cause of some description or other. Till they once 
admitted and became familiarized with that fundamental truth, it was 
clear that all their thoughts must wander loosely without a fixture or 
fulcrum— and that start where we might, and adduce what evidence we 
pleased, we were in the end tossed to and fro and lost amid the bewilder- 
ments of an infinite series of intelligently designing or blind undesigning 
causes. 

Hence the necessity of resorting to a mixed mode of what has been, 
though very improperly, styled the a prwri argument ; for there never was, 
there never can be, strictly speaking, an a priori argument for the being 
of God. What is meant by such an argument ? It is an argument from 
cause to effect, from antecedent to consequent. It is this that contra- 
distinguishes it from the a posteriori argument, which is an argument from 
effect to cause, from consequent to antecedent. In reference to the being 
of a God, the application of the latter is not only legitimate, but rigidly 
philosophical. That for every effect there must be an adequate cause, is 
a maxim which, however it may be cavilled at by atheistical speculators, 
is sanctioned by the common consent of mankind, and is enshrined as 
the basis on which has been reared the magnificent temple of all modern 
science. When, therefore, from certain effects such as the marks and 
traces of design in the phenomena of nature, we infer an adequate design- 
ing cause,— we occupy irrefragable ground. Now, a rigid a priori proof 
for the being and attributes of God, must of necessity be whoUy independ- 
ent of the existence of such effects as those which indicate design. But it 
is easy to see that such an argument is in the nature of tilings impossible. 
The thing to be proved is the existence of a first cause. To prove this by 
an a priori argument, would require us to imagine the existence of some- 

S S 



642 



thing antecedent to the first cause, from which antecedent something, as 
a basis, we might argue downwards to the origin of this cause. That an- 
tecedent something would then be itself the first cause, for whose existence 
a demonstration was sought ; so that the a priori argument for a first cause 
must suppose a first cause already proved. 

Such an argument has often been vainly attempted by scholastic philo- 
sophers ; but that which is now known under the name of a priori, aims 
at no such impossibility. It does overlook, in the first instance, all that 
is special or distinctive in the phenomena of nature : It does wholly disre- 
gard their laws, properties, and distinguishing characters ;— but it does not 
pretend to overlook or disregard the simple fact of their existence. This fact, 
" that there is something now in actual being," it does assume, — and that is 
all. In this respect it entirely differs from the a posteriori argument, 
whose force wholly depends on a specific consideration of the frame and 
structure of external objects. In strictness of phraseology, therefore, it is 
neither wholly a priori, nor wholly a posteriori,— but something compound- 
ed of both. Of this kind is the celebrated demonstration of Dr Samuel 
Clarke. It was to an argument of this description, that peculiar circum- 
stances constrained me to resort, in order to establish the necessary 
existence of a First Cause,— irrespectively, at the outset, of a specific 
consideration of its nature and attributes. And it was to prevent any 
misconception on this head, that in an address delivered and published 
four years ago, I chose to designate it " a mixed mode of the a prion ar- 
gument." 

The subject is too lengthy to be introduced here ; and a bare analysis 
would prove unsatisfactory, if not utterly unintelligible. Suffice it to 
say, that starting with the simple assumption, which was readily conced- 
ed, viz., that " something does now actually exist,"— a consecutive chain 
of reasoning was conducted more after the model supplied by Howe, 
than that of Dr Clarke,— moulded throughout, as far as possible, to the 
taste and comprehension of the hearers,— and accompanied with illus- 
trations adapted to their known intellectual habits and pursuits. It 
was shown, that, as nothing could not possibly have originated any 
thing, and as no being could be its own maker without involving the 
contradiction that it existed before it actually existed,— seeing that some- 
thing really now is, it must follow that « some being hath ever been, or 
did never begin to be." In like manner, it was shown successively, by a 
continued appeal to well-exercised reason, that some being must ever have 
been uncaused, or of itself without a cause ; independent, or dependent 
on nothing without itself; necessarily existent, or existing neither by its 
own choice nor that of another, and consequently by the intrinsic absolute 
necessity of its own nature. Thereafter, from a lengthened review, it was 
shown how, in order to avoid palpable absurdities and contradictions, the 
changeable and constantly changing state of things must be admitted 
to imply, not necessary, but dependent communicated being. When, by 
appropriate links, this inevitable admission was connected with the 
previous demonstration of the existence of some eternal, uncaused, self- 



643 



originated being,— the grand conclusion was established, that there is ait 
eternal, self-existent, independent, and necessary Being,— who must be 
the original, or great First Cause and Author of « this perpetually variable 
state and frame of things." And this great First Cause is what we de- 
nominate God. 

With this simple unembarrassed conclusion, the lecture of the evening 
terminated. And I must own, that during the ensuing week, I felt more 
than surprised at the impression which had been produced by it. Though, 
as a mere appeal to abstract reason I was not then, neither have I since' 
been conscious of any flaw in the chain of argument,— and I know not 
how it can be refuted without open violence to the common reason of 
mankind,— yet, I freely confess that, however unanswerable in itself, it was 
not an argument that ever vitally influenced, or tended vitally to persuade 
my own mind. On this account mainly it was that, in the first instance, 
I altogether avoided it ; and was only driven to betake myself to it from 
the necessity of circumstances. After much prayerful anxiety for the re- 
sult, it was, almost as a dernier resort, taken up and handled, somewhat 
hke a bow drawn at a venture. But He-to those present emphatically 
the unknown God,— whose existence it was designed, however dimly and 
remotely to establish, was pleased to direct the shaft. For after that 
night, I heard no more of there being no great First Cause and Prime- 
val Source of all things. 

It may appear to some, that after all, comparatively little had been 
gained ; since nothing had occurred to indicate whether the self-existent 
and original cause of all things was an intelligent or unintelligent Being ; 
—and herein, after all, as Dr Clarke very properly remarks, « lies the 
main question between us and Atheists." But, if the peculiar state of 
mind of those to whom the argument was addressed, be distinctly under- 
stood, it must be conceded that much had been gained. They had become 
wholly lost in mazes of infinite series, and of infinite successions. They 
were running a race ; but as to the prospect of reaching a fixed goal, they 
might as well have been traversing the diverging sides of a parabola 
Now, their being brought, on the ground of irrefutable argument, to admit 
the being of a great First Cause, was an actual reaching of some fixed goal, 
—around which, all these thoughts might steadily revolve. As to future 
safety and usefulness, it made all the difference between a ship without 
rudder and compass, when vehemently tossed about by the tempest on a 
shoreless ocean, and the same compassless and rudderless ship snugly 
riding at anchor in a peaceful haven. 

The existence of a great First Cause having now been admitted, we 
next evening entered on a more specific inquiry into His nature' and 



' The axiom assumed as the basis of proof in this department was, that 
" no cause can ever communicate to its effect any real perfection which 
it has not actually in itself,"— otherwise, something real and positive 
would be produced by nothing.— After due explication and vindication of 
the truth of this axiom, it was shown in the ordinary way, how from the 



644 



and action observable in the external world, we must infer that the 
First Cause is self-acting, self-moving— having "the power of action and 
motion in and of itself,"— underived from any other source. From our own 
consciousness of possessing intelligence, it was inferred, that the self-exist- 
ent must also be an intelligent cause. And here, the ordinary a posteriori 
argument from design was introduced with resistless effect. It was no longer 
appealed to, in order primarily to prove the existence of ^previously unacknow- 
ledged cause,— but only in order to illustrate the nature of a cause whose 
eternal existence was already acknowledged. In this respect, a new review 
of the wonderful mechanisms wherewith the world abounds— of the evi- 
dently intentional adaptation and exact fitness of all things to their respec- 
tive ends— and of the inimitable beauty and harmony which overspread the 
whole, did not fail to exhibit the most indisputable signatures of design, 
—and design, the most convictive evidence of the operation of a designing 

intelligence. . . 

Then followed proofs of the unity and spirituality of the Initial, Em- 
cient cause,— the existence of whose mighty works proved His power, and 
their exquisite contrivances His wisdom or intelligence. 

To the subject of His spirituality, in particular, it was found necessary 
to devote a whole evening,-because some of those present had deeply 
plunged into the quagmire of gross materialism. Their notions on this sub- 
ject were partly of Indian and partly of English growth. In India, 
for probably three thousand years, one of the principal heretical schools 
has consisted of a sect of rigid materialists. It has its ancient authori- 
tative standards and subsequent commentaries and disquisitions. In 
these, materialism has been framed into an elaborate system. Assuming 
the eternal existence of a material atom, so minute as to be « imperceptible 
to a needle's point," the philosophers of this school proceed to deduce from 
this wonderful atom, by a process of successive expansion, the entire fa- 
bric of the visible universe. And they coolly and deliberately assert that 
intellect and intelligence are the material product of a material substance. 
The Indian scheme has at least the merit of being consistent with itself. 
If it regards man as a being wholly material, it regards the only Deity of 
which it admits, as wholly material too. This is more than can be al- 
leged of the English philosophic schools of Materialists. They treat of 
man as material; but have not yet proclaimed the materiality of God. 
In this respect, their system is absurdly inconsistent with itself ; as it might 
be proved, that the very premises, which are said to lead to the conclusion 
that man is material, if legitimately followed out, would demonstrably im- 
pel us to believe in a material Deity ! Many had learnt to talk of « in- 
telligence" as " a property of matter under certain modifications "—an 
assertion as wise and warrantable as would be the affirmation that « light 
is a property of blackness under certain modifications ;"— of " intelli- 
gence," as « the result of material organization,"-an idle figment contra- 
dicted by ten thousand experiments, and veiled in words which can only 
captivate the credulity of ignorance ;-of "intelligence," as an "ingre- 
dient or inseparable adjunct" of a certain kind of " animal life which 



645 



itself is said to consist in " an assemblage of animal functions," or « modes 
of operation !"— as if the functions or modes of action of any thing could 
be the cause of its own existence !— as if that which owes its origin 
to its own modes of action could be the source and origin of what is 
represented as a main part of itself !— All this, and other such flat non- 
sense—or, if that term be too vulgar for ears polite— all this unintelligible 
sense had been learnt from the British and French schools of mate- 
rialism ! 

The many contradictions and sophisms involved in the leading schemes 
of materialism having been sufficiently exposed, we proceeded to consider 
the remaining attributes of the great First Cause. 

Here, however, we must stop. To proceed any farther with even the 
most meagre analysis, would be to write a volume on the outlines of the 
external evidences of natural and revealed religion,— would be to furnish 
answers to all manner of objections. For this we have at present neither 
time nor space :— suflice it to say, that, even on the subject of evidence, no lec- 
ture was ever concluded without some practical reflections and appeals naturally 
arising from the subjects discussed— reflections and appeals calculated to 
awaken the conscience and impress the heart. When the authenticity 
and authority of the Christian Scriptures were fully admitted by some, 
and no longer opposed by others, we proceeded to consider the nature of 
their contents. In unfolding the substance of God's holy oracles, our 
uniform plan was, systematically to combine the doctrinal with the prac- 
tical. A leading doctrine, proposition, or theorem, which we held to be 
clearly revealed in the Bible, was distinctly announced ; it was then sub- 
stantiated by a reference to numerous passages which, according to the 
established canons of criticism and exegesis, could not be otherwise in- 
terpreted ; and lastly, the doctrine so substantiated was pressed home not 
only on the understanding, but on the hearts and consciences of the hear- 
ers. The rudimental doctrine of Christianity being, that all men are sin- 
ners ; and, as such, the subjects of the Divine displeasure, and the heirs of 
everlasting perdition ; that doctrine was stated in the broadest Scriptural 
acceptation, without qualification or reserve. For several weeks it was 
illustrated, vindicated, and enforced. The Bible, the past history and exist- 
ing state of the world, and the secret experience of all present^were sum- 
moned as witnesses at the bar of the understanding and the conscience 
to give weight and authority to the condemnatory verdict. At first all 
were startled and taken by surprise,— expressing amazement at the unex- 
pected extent, of the charge of guilt preferred against them. Some were 
mightily offended, as if a personal affront had been offered. Others were 
perfectly exasperated with rage and fury,— denouncing the entire charge 
as a foul calumny or wicked libel upon their character. The consciences 
of a few, however, as the result fully proved, were pricked to the quick. 
Agitated and perplexed, these were suddenly thrown into a new and 
untried state of being— the Word of Life, sealed by the efficacy of the 
Spirit, signally displaying its wondrous efficacy. 
After having dwelt at length on the nature of man's disease, and the 



646 



reality of his helplessness, we passed on, from certain prospective glances, 
to contemplate more at large the nature of the remedy. To prepare 
the mind for beholding the overflowing fulness of grace in the spring- 
head of redemption, we first of all expatiated on the real difficulties 
which stood in the way of a remedy at all. For this purpose the char- 
acter and attributes of Jehovah, as unfolded in the Bible, were spread 
out, chiefly in the sublime simplicity of the language of inspiration itself. 
His holiness, in particular, was unveiled in its awful and mysterious gran- 
deur that holiness which forms the burden of seraphic song — that holi- 
ness, in whose presence evil cannot dwell — that holiness which, in its burn- 
ing purity, is not only sin's opposite, but sin's active, unyielding, everlasting 
antagonist. Having its root or foundation in holiness, the sovereign and 
judicial attribute of justice was largely descanted on— that justice which 
infallibly determines and maintains the Creator's rights, and the crea- 
ture's duties,— that justice which infallibly apportions the rewards and 
punishments consequent on obedience and disobedience,— unchange- 
ably demanding the bestowal of the one, and the infliction of the other. 
With these views of Jehovah's character and attributes, were next con- 
trasted the evil and malignity of sin,— sin which would sully the purity 
of Divine holiness— traverse the plans of Divine wisdom— disturb the 
felicity contemplated by Divine goodness— abrogate the sanction of Di- 
vine truth— nullify the pledges of Divine faithfulness— violate the claims 
of Divine justice— subvert the stability of the Divine government ;— sin, 
which would not only affront and outrage, but, if possible, annihilate the 
Divine perfections, and reduce the boundless creation into an universal 
pandemonium. 

From such a review and comparison, it was concluded, — on grounds 
clearly revealed in Scripture, and incapable of being gainsayed by en- 
lightened reason,— that the treason and turpitude of sin, in the sight 
of a holy God, are so aggravated, that the penalty of every transgres- 
sion can be nothing less than death— death, even to excision from the 
beatific presence, and the endurance of merited suffering through unend- 
ing ages,— and that, however overwhelming the thought, such penalty, 
m all its tremendous unmitigated severity, is not only not opposed to any 
moral perfection, but is itself the necessary and unavoidable result of the 
combined manifestation of God's adorable and unchangeable attributes. 
Hence the terrible alternative, either that the self- existent immutable 
Jehovah must change ; and consequently, as such, cease to be, or the guilt 
of every one delinquent in any portion of His dominions, must be visited 
with severities at once penal and eternal. And as the former branch of 
the alternative must be pronounced the chief of all impossibilities, the 
understanding of a finite being must have rested satisfied with the latter, 
however dreary, and hopeless, and unalleviated. The highest created in- 
telligences must for ever have been baffled in solving the problem, How 
God could be holy, and just, and true, and yet the Justifier of guilty rebels. 
Already had many of Jehovah's attributes been manifested with un- 
equalled bistre in the spotless mirror of His works. The production of 



647 



innumerable worlds glorified His power : the order and harmony of created 
things glorified His wisdom : the unmingled happiness of blessed spirits 
glorified His goodness : the restless tossings of rebel angels in the fiery 
lake glorified His justice :— but how could mercy and grace be glorified 
except by the pardon and redemption of hell-deserving sinners ? Yet, 
mercy and grace could never be glorified without the full vindication of 
every other attribute— that is, without what must have for ever appeared 
to all finite capacity absolutely impossible. 

Here then was presented the Divine solution of the apparently insur- 
mountable difficulty. In the counsels of eternity, it was resolved that the 
second Person of the glorious and ever-blessed Godhead should in time 
assume the human form ; and as Immanuel, God with us, become the 
Surety and the Substitute of sinners. He alone was able : for neither 
angel nor archangel could adopt His language, and say, « I have power to 
lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again." But the grand 
subject of almost stupifying amazement, was that He should be willing 
—that He, whose all-comprehending mind could measure the evil desert of 
sin, and whose perfect holiness must have frowned on it with irreconcilable 
displacency-thatHe who could adequately conceive the aggravated guilt 
of rebellion against the Majesty of heaven, and whose inflexible righteous- 
ness might have demanded to avenge it-that He, the Brightness of the 
Father's glory, should condescend to stoop so low for apostate rebels ' 
When the "great mystery" was first divulged in the courts above, well 
might all heaven break forth into hosannahs of praise and admiration of 
the Illustrious Surety. Again and again might they compare the magni- 
tude of the crime with the magnitude of the deserved punishment ^-contrast 
the infinite malignity of sin with the infinite holiness of the Divine nature 
—the transcendent majesty of the Son, with the vileness of rebels to be 
saved— the resplendent glories of heaven, with the unfathomed depths of 
his coming degradation. And louder and louder might they raise their 
hallelujahs ; till, lost and overwhelmed in wonder and astonishment, 
they could only exclaim, in Divine simplicity of language—" Herein 
is love." 

For ages subsequent to the fall of man, the prospect of deliverance 
through an Almighty Saviour constituted the hope and the joy of the 
faithful ;— the successive announcements of the great design formed the 
staple of prophecy ; and its gradual development, the history of Pro- 
vidence. But it was only when the Son of God became incarnate in human 
form, that the grand act of mercy and of justice was consummated. As man, 
—to adopt, in substance, the remarks of an old divine— as man, the Saviour 
became subject to the law ; as God, He magnified and made it honourable. 
As man, he suffered the penalties due to transgression ; as God, He amply 
satisfied every demand of holiness, justice, righteousness, and truth. As 
man, he gave his soul an offering for sin ; as God, He stampt the offering 
with infinite value. As man, he died ; as God, He conquered death, 
and the grave, and hell. In a word, all the Divine attributes were illus- 
triously vindicated ; grace and mercy, glorified j and everlasting peace 



648 



and reconciliation established between offended Majesty and offendin; 



man. 



All the preceding subjects, and many more, directly or collaterally in- 
volved in the vicarious sufferings and sacrificial and atoning death of Ini- 
manuel, were largely descanted on. More especially was the wondrous 
love of Christ pressed home in its varied practical bearings,— that love, 
the very thought of which ever set the heart of the great apostle on fire ; 
and ever caused the pen of inspiration itself to quiver when summoning 
us to scan its height, and depth, and length, and breadth ;— challenging 
us to confess that it " passeth knowledge,"— that it is vast beyond the 
grasp of all finite conception, and that no metaphor can embrace the 
amplitude of the theme. 

But though utterly unable to scale immeasurable heights, or gauge unfa- 
thomable depths, or take the dimensions of illimitable lengths and breadths, 
those present were again and again besought to contemplate more fully 
the freeness and the richness of that love of God in Christ, which flowed 
forth to redeem a guilty world,— which, in reference to the past, has been 
pronounced everlasting ; and which, at every point of a coming duration 
will be everlasting still— which, in time, fixed itself upon the human 
race when they had no merit and no moral excellence ; yea, when all were 
alike wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked ;— objects of 
spiritual loathsomeness in" the sight of heaven, and outcasts in the uni- 
verse of God, Again and again were they besought to consider the great- 
ness and the strength of that love which « many waters could not quench, 
nor the floods of great waters drown,"— which led Him who was "fairer 
than the sons of men," to have His « visage so marred more than any 
man's, and His form than the sons of men ;"_which caused Him to ap- 
pear « red in His apparel, and His garment dyed in blood ;" treading the 
wine-press alone ; sustaining the curse of a broken law, and the wrath of 
an avenging God ;— and aU this, to cancel that guilt of theirs, which even 
eternal torments could never atone for, as eternity will never end ; and 
wipe away those stains of sin which oceans of blood could never cleanse ! 
And while they thought of all this, they were besought, with consciences 
quickened, and stony hearts softened, and souls enkindled with the fer- 
vour of Divine love, to exclaim in language, whose very simplicity proved 
the subject to be vast beyond all hyperbole to express it :— " Herein is 
love : not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to 
be a propitiation for our sins." 

With these latter exhortations, there were also blended frequent no- 
tices of the administration of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter ; who was 
sent forth in virtue of Christ's accepted sacrifice,— distinct intimations of 
His personality, His Divine character and attributes ; a vindication 
and enforcement of the necessity of His preventing and co-operating 
grace ; and various other indispensable offices in conducting the economy 
and efficiently applying the fruits of redemption. At the same time* 
the urgent call for humble confession, earnest supplication, and importu- 
nate prayer for repentance and forgiveness —as well as for the quickening, 



649 



enlightening, and sanctifying influences of the Spirit,— was again and 
again reiterated. 

In the course of these latter prelections and addresses on the subject 
of man's disease, and the all-sufficient remedy provided in the Gospel, 
vital impressions, through the gracious influence of God's Spirit, began 
to be made on the minds of several of the native auditors. 

The first intimation of a decided change in the mind of any, was con- 
veyed to me in a note, of which the folio wiug is a transcript : 

"My Dear Sir,— The bearer of this chit (note) is my brother • have 
the goodness to examine him j or do just as you please. 

" If you can make a Christian of him, you will have a valuable one ; and 
you may rest assured, that you have my hearty consent to it. Convince 
him, and make him a Christian, and I will give no secret opposition. 
Scepticism has made me too miserable to wish my dear brother the same. 
A doubtfulness of the existence of another world, and of the benevolence 
of God, made me too unhappy, and spread a gloom all over my mind ; but 
I thank God that I have no doubts at present. I am travelling from step 
to step ; and Christianity, I think, will be the last place where I shall rest ; 
for every time I think, its evidence becomes too overpowering. Adieu. 
Most truly yours. Mohesh Ghose." 

In the editorial article of the "Enquirer" newspaper, bearing date 28th Au- 
gust 1832, are found these words :— " We had the pleasure on Sunday last, 
of witnessing at the old church, the baptism of a native gentleman, Baboo 
Mohesh Chunder Ghose,in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, 

by the Rev. T . Baboo M. C. Ghose was brought up at the Hindu 

College. The education of the college made him abjure Hinduism as a 
mass of superstition ; and the weekly lectures of Mr D. excited in him a 
desire to inquire into the claims of Christianity. The fruit of a steady 
examination of the evidences of this religion has, under the providence of 
God, been his conviction of its truths ; which conviction he publicly de- 
clared the day before yesterday. Well may Mr D. be happy, upon the 
reflection that his labours have, through the grace of the Almighty, been 
instrumental in convincing some of the truth of Christianity, and others 
of the importance of an inquiry into it. We hope ere long to be able to 
witness more and more such happy results in this country." 

Fromanotice of this convert, inserted in the intelligence department of the 
Calcutta Christian Observer, 1st September, the following paragraph is an 
extract :— "When in November 1831, he first attended the Rev. Mr D.'s 
Lectures on the Evidences and Doctrines of Natural and Revealed Religion, 
no language can well describe the impression produced on the minds of 
many of the auditors, by the forward, bold, reckless manner in which he 
advanced his numberless atheistical assertions. But, to his honour be it 
said, that if he was the most rash and daring in broaching objections, he 
was also the first to acknowledge their utter fallacy, or utter frivolousness, 
when exposed in their naked barrenness. No one could accuse him of 
double-mindedness. What he felt, or thought, be it right or be it wrong, 



650 



he at once, without veil or covering, or sly equivocation, made known to 
all around. And if no one was more apt to blunder, or more ready to 
attack, no one was half so ready to acknowledge his error, or confess his 
weakness. In a word, though considerably in advance of the majority of 
his fellows in talent and attainment, the most remarkable feature in his 
mental constitution seemed to be a straight-forward ingenuousness. Hence 
it is, that, in spite of the judgment formed of him by those who saw him 
chiefly in public, Mr D., who saw as much of him in private as in public, 
was wont to regard it as most probable that he would be the first to make 
a public profession of Christianity. And so it has happened. Shaken 
out of Atheism, he took shelter in Deism ; driven from Deism, he sought 
refuge in the general acknowledgment of Christianity, as a revelation from God ; 
awakened to a just sense of the utter dreariness, and wholly unscriptural 
nature of those representations of the Christian system which would fritter 
it into something as cold-hearted and inconsistent as the most meagre 
Deism, he at length embraced those transcendent views of divine truth 
which have been entertained by the overwhelming majority of Christians 
in every age." 

In another Calcutta periodical, a singularly interesting account written 
by the young convert himself, was inserted ; detailing the successive steps 
of that painful and protracted mental process by which he was led down- 
ward, from Idolatry to Atheism, from Atheism to Materialism, and from 
Materialism to blind Physical Necessity ; and thence again, in an upward 
ascent towards Deism, and ultimately Christianity, — but characterised 
by a marked and apparently studied silence as to any of the external means 
which had been blessed by God in effecting each internal change and transi- 
tion from the labyrinth of a Metaphysco- Atheistic-material necessity, to 
the peaceful haven of a sound and settled conviction of the truth, as it is 
in Jesus. This circumstance, together with the fact, that he was baptized 
by a clergyman who had not had the remotest connection with him till after he 
had resolved to make a public profession of the Christian faith, led to the rise and 
circulation of many idle surmises and unprofitable speculations. 

On this subject, a few extracts from the Calcutta Christian Observer, 
for October, will convey all the information which historic justice requires. 
« In our last number we mentioned the fact of Baboo Mohesh Chunder 
Ghose, having been baptized at the old church ; and we dwelt rather 
largely on the external circumstances connected with his conversion from 
Hinduism to Christianity. In the Christian Intelligencer for the present 

month, is a letter addressed by the Baboo, to the Kev. T. , detailing 

the steps by which he was led to renounce Idolatry and to adopt the 
Christian faith ; in which is a total silence in reference to those circum- 
stances spoken of by us as facts. We in common with many others were 
greatly surprised, and concluded that either we had unintentionally fallen 
into a great error, which we were bound to remedy without delay, or that 
the Baboo, for some unknown reason, had purposely suppressed the truth. 
We immediately made inquiry ; and the following communication will set 
to rest the matter, as it regards the correctness of our former account 



651 



To the Editors of the Christian Observer, 
"Gentlemen,— Having been informed that certain misunderstandings 
have arisen by my keeping silence to take notice of the facts that were 
mentioned in the Christian Observer, about myself, after my baptism ; I 
hereby send a few lines to obviate them, if possible. The facts that were 
mentioned in the forementioned periodical, regarding the external circum- 
stances connected with my change of mind, are perfectly genuine ; there is 
not a syllable of them strained or forged. I have nothing to say of the 
opinions which the writer thus held ; my business is with the evidence of 

simple facts, and I have done my duty in having corroborated them 

Most obediently yours. (Signed) Mohesh Ghose." 

After this candid acknowledgment, and especially when it is known 
that the Baboo, in private conversation, and in letters addressed to his 
friends, does not hesitate to declare the whole truth, and yet, in the paper 
to which we have referred, does not say a word on the subject, we must 
say it appears to us " passing strange." In a letter shown to us, by his 
own special permission, he strongly declares that " he hopes that his being 
baptized by Mr J. will not give rise to the opinion that he was led to the 
faith by him, for that Mr J. as well as himself were directly opposed to 
such an idea :"— he solemnly assures his friend, that "if there be a mortal 
man on earth, to whom he owes so much for turning his Atheistical mind 
to the consolations of Christianity, it is to Mr D. ;"— adding, that "this 
should be taken as his sincere opinion, as he could not be satisfied in his 
conscience as long as he had not done justice on this point." Thus far 
the testimony of the Calcutta Christian Observer. 

Not to speak of the hopeful renovation of heart, it would be difficult 
to imagine a renovation more thorough in the external deportment of 
any one than in that of M. C. Ghose. His fearless and ferocious vehemence 
in the advocacy of all that was blasphemous and dissocializing, became 

transformed into a calm and well-regulated, but determined energy, a 

bland and forbearing, but unconquerable meekness, in defence of the 
truth. He was often wont to give vent to his own feelings of surprise at 
the change which he was conscious of having undergone. On one occasion, 
in our house, in the company of several friends, after being wrapt up for 
some time in deep and intense meditation, he suddenly broke silence 
nearly in these words :— "A twelvemonth ago, I was an Atheist, a Material- 
ist, a Physical Necessitarian ; and what am I now? A baptized Christian ! 
A twelvemonth ago, I was the most miserable of the miserable; and what 
am I now ? In my own mind, the happiest of the happy. What a change ! 
How has it been brought about ? The recollection of the past fills me 
with wonder. When I first came to your Lectures, it was not instruction 
I wanted. Instruction was the pretext,— a secret desire to expose what I 
reckoned your irrational and superstitious follies, the reality. Contrary 
to my previous wish, contrary to my previous determination, I was driven 
from my first position. I then occupied another, resolved never to yield. 
Contrary to my previous wish, contrary to my previous determination, I 



652 



was driven from that also. I then occupied another, as eagerly resolved 
as before, never to abandon it. Contrary to my previous wish, contrary 
to my previous determination, I was again driven away from it. And so, 
at every stage I resisted ;— being predetermined not to advance a step 
farther ; for I hated Christianity, and could not endure the very thought 
of being so convinced as to be obliged to embrace it. And yet, I knew 
not what was in it ; I could not continue silent. When compelled to yield 
one point, I never felt the less sure of being able to maintain that on 
which I next depended. In this way, contrary to my original expectation, 
contrary to the strongest wishes of my heart, I was carried on step by 
step, till at last, against my inclinations, against my feelings, I was obliged 
to admit the truth of Christianity. Its evidence was so strong that I 
could not resist it. But I still felt contrary to what I thought. On hearing 
your account of the nature of sin, and especiaUy sins of the heart, my 
conscience burst upon me like a volcano. My soul was pierced through 
with horrible reflections, and terrible alarms ; it seemed as if racked and 
rent in pieces. I was in a hell of torment. On hearing and examining 
farther, I began, I know not how or why, to find relief from the words of 
the Bible. What I once thought most irrational, I soon found to be very 
wisdom ; what I once hated most, I soon began to love most ; and now I 
love it altogether. What a change ! How can I account for it ? On any 
natural principle I cannot. For every step that I was made to take, was 
contrary to my previous natural wish and will. My progress was not that 
of earnest inquiry, but of earnest opposition. And to the last, my heart 
was opposed. In spite of myself, I became a Christian. Surely some un- 
seen power must have been guiding me. Surely this must have been 
what the Bible calls < grace,'— free grace,— sovereign grace— and if ever 
there was an election of grace, surely I am one." 



The editor of the Enquirer, in giving an account of the baptism of M. 
C. Ghose, expressed a hope that he should be able, ere long, to " witness 
more such happy results." He himself was the next candidate for bap- 
tism. 

His case excited more than ordinary interest. In his earlier days he 
became, like his fathers, the victim of a soul- withering superstition. While 
yet a youth, how could he help being entrapped in the thousand entangle- 
ments which beset him % As a Brahman, he would from infancy be initiated 
into all the mysteries of a heathen priestcraft. As a Kulin Brahman, a 
Brahman of the highest caste, he had before him the prospect of much 
worldly enjoyment ; and the certain assurance of unbounded reverence 
from the great mass, who would esteem it their highest privilege to be 
permitted to do him honour. But Providence had better things in store 
for Krishna Mohana Banerji. His subsequent career, as a student in 
the Hindu College, and latterly, as editor of the Enquirer newspaper, has 
already been briefly sketched. From the first, he was a most regular 
and attentive hearer of the Lectures specially addressed to those Educated 



653 



Natives who fiercely denounced Hinduism without having succeeded in 
discovering a substitute. And, to his credit be it spoken, he never relaxed 
in his endeavours to impress his countrymen with a sense of the duty 
of attending ; in order to give the subject a candid consideration. 

The first visible symptom of improvement in his views appeared in the 
unhesitating assertion, in his Journal, of the being of one Supreme Intelli- 
gence ; whose power, wisdom, and goodness, as manifested in the works of 
creation, are without bounds or limit. Afterwards were admitted many 
discussions, chiefly carried on by correspondents, respecting the evidences, 
and last of all, the doctrines of Christianity. And though, in conducting' 
these, the editor took no very decided part, yet did it most clearly appear 
to which side he was gradually inclined to lean. While he professed to 
admire the moral precepts of the Gospel, his mind was long painfully agi- 
tated with doubts respecting the divine authority and inspiration of the 
Scriptures. And after their authority had been established to his satis- 
faction, his mind revolted at what appeared to him the utter unreasonable- 
ness of some of the doctrines therein propounded ; and more particularly 
the doctrine of the atonement, which necessarily implies the divinity of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

His own simple account— written shortly after his baptism— of the di- 
lemma in which he was placed in relation to this subject, is as follows :_ 
" My attention having been particularly directed to the Socinian and 
Trinitarian systems, I at once felt more favourable to the former than the 
latter ; but not seeing any thing in it so great, that it might reasonably 
call for the adoption of such extraordinary measures as those which Jesus 
employed for its propagation, I could not yield my conviction to it. On 
the other hand, I understood not aright the doctrine of the atonement ; 
and on grounds of mere natural reason, could never believe it to be pos- 
sibly true. And as the Bible pointed unequivocally to it, I strove to per- 
suade myself, in spite of the most overpowering external evidence, not to 
believe in the Sacred Volume. Neither could I be satisfied with the 
forced interpretation of the Socinians. Socinianism, which seemed little 
better than Deism, I thought could not be so far above human compre- 
hension that God should think of working such extraordinary miracles for 
its establishment. Accordingly, though the external evidences of the 
truth of the Bible were overwhelming, yet, because I could not, on prin- 
ciples of reason, be satisfied with either of the two interpretations given 
of it, I could not persuade my heart to believe. The doctrines of Trini- 
tarian Christians, which I thought were really according to the plain im- 
port of Scripture language, were all against my feelings and inclinations. 
Socinianism, though consonant with my natural pride, seemed yet so in- 
significant, as a professed revelation, that I could not conceive how, with 
propriety, an All-wise God should work miracles for its sake. So that I 
remained in a state of doubt and perplexity for a long time ; till God, by 
the influence of his Holy Spirit, was graciously pleased to open my soul 
to discern its sinfulness and guilt, and the suitableness of the great salva- 
tion which centred in the atoning death of a Divine Redeemer. And the 



654 



same doctrine of the atonement which, when not properly understood, was 
my last great argument against the divine origin of the Bible, is now, when 
rightly apprehended, a principal reason for my belief and vindication of 
the Bible as the production of infinite wisdom and love. From my own 
conscience I can now say, that an examination of the external evidences 
of Christianity will serve only to give a head knowledge of it ; and though 
the understanding may submit to it, the heart will not do so tiU God, by 
His grace, convince it that it is under the curse of sin, and deserves his 
vengeance. Though it is true that the arguments for Christianity are 
more than enough, and that it is the greatest and the most philosophical 
of all truths,— though no assertion could be a more flagrant falsehood than 
that it is < built upon faith, not reason,'— yet he, who would be a Christian 
indeed, must pray that he may have a deep practical sense of that which 
his understanding may tell him is true. He must ever bear in mind, that 
the purposes of true religion are not merely to give knowledge to the in- 
tellect, but purity to the heart ; and that a Christian is nothing if he have 
not a faith which worketh by love, and bringeth forth all the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness." 

When, after the removal of all his doubts and perplexities, he at last 
came formally to announce his desire to be admitted a member of the vi- 
sible Church, his whole deportment and conversation were expressive of 
the deepest humiliation and contrition on account of his former sinful 
wanderings. Of this his sentiments respecting the proper place for admi- 
nistering the ordinance of baptism, offered a simple and beautiful illus- 
tration. " Some," said he, a urge me to go to your church, and be bap- 
tized there ; but I cannot agree to it. My own desire is, that that place 
which has been the scene of all my public opposition to the true religion, 
should also be the scene of my public confession of it. If I go to the 
church, my native acquaintances will not go, because their doing so would 
seem to their friends as making themselves one with the Christians. But 
they will come to your Lecture Room, as they have been accustomed to 
do. And my fervent wish is, that those— who knew me as an idolater, an 
atheist, a deist, and unbeliever, and may have been strengthened in their 
own unbelief by my arguments— may now be the witnesses of my public 
recantation of all error, and public embracing of the truth, the whole 
truth, as revealed in the Bible. And who can tell, but the sight and the 
example may be blessed by God to the awakening of some of my poor 
countrymen." 

Of his baptism the following is one of the notices that appeared in the 
Calcutta Journals : — 

« One of the most solemn, and at the same time gratifying scenes that 
we ever witnessed, was exhibited last evening at the house of the Rev. 
A. D. The occasion was the public avowal and profession of Christianity, 
sealed by the ordinance of Baptism, of an intelligent Kulin Brahman, the 
well known editor of the Enquirer newspaper. 

« This sacred ordinance was administered in the presence of a numev- 



655 



ous and highly respectable company of ladies and gentlemen, and of up- 
wards of forty natives, the majority of whom are quondam pupils of the 
Hindoo College, and were some of its brightest ornaments. 

• The service was commenced by the Rev. Mr Mackay in a short and 
impressive prayer ; Mr D. then advanced with the young convert before 
the audience; addressed him at considerable length on the nature of that 
rite by virtue of which he was admitted into the church of Christ ; and 
concluded by asking, in the most solemn manner, several questions,' rela- 
tive to his present views and resolutions. 

" The first question was to the following effect :— Do you renounce all 
idolatry, superstition, and all the frivolous rites and practices of the Hin- 
doo religion ? To this the Baboo replied,-' I do, and I pray God that he 
may incline my countrymen to do so likewise.' The second question 
was :— Do you believe in God the Father and Creator of all, in Jesus 
Christ as your Redeemer, and in His sacrifice as the only means whereby 
man may be saved, and in the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit ? 
To this, with considerable emotion, he replied, < I do, and I pray God to 
give me His grace to do His will.' 

" These, and other questions being answered, Mr D. administered 
the ordinance in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and then 
engaged in prayer, the whole company kneeling and apparently wrapt in 
the most intense devotion. The fact of a sensible young man, who had 
received a liberal education, and a Kulin Brahman, throwing off the 
shackles of a grovelling superstition, and embracing for his faith the 
glorious Gospel, after a long and patient investigation, with the sacrifice 
of the affections of a tender mother and fond relations, exposed to the 
ridicule and cruel treatment of his countrymen, and, despite of these, 
counting them as dross for the excellency of the knowledge of the truth, 
eventually avowing his conviction of that truth, and now receiving the 
outward sign of that grace of which he is the subject, was indeed enough 
to excite that deep interest which was so conspicuously manifested." 

These baptisms, though small in number, were in quality of inestimable 
value. As regards the individual soul and eternity, every genuine bap- 
tism is as precious as every other. But as regards the influences exerted 
on society, there may be the utmost possible difference in degrees of va- 
lue. The baptisms now recorded did produce an impression on the public 
mind, both native and European, which in intensity of interest vastly ex- 
ceeded what might be expected from their numerical amount. Some of 
the reasons are obvious. These were the first that had ever taken place 
in Eastern India among the better classes of natives who had acquired a 
thorough European education. This alone was enough to draw general 
attention towards them. Then, again, the individuals were not only of 
respectable caste and family, but from the eventful change and incidents in 
their brief career, of universal notoriety. This most especially held true 
of one of the number. What man, woman, or child, in Calcutta, had not 
heard of the name and some of the doings of Krishna Mohana Banerji ? 



656 

Hence his baptism, in particular, became the theme of conversation and 
discussion with every group that met on the street or in the bazaar ; in 
every snug coterie reposing under shade from the mid-day sun ; in every 
school ; and in every family circle. Hundreds, or even thousands of bap- 
tisms among the low caste, or no caste, or illiterate grades, generally, 
would not have excited a tithe of the mental stir and inquiry then exhi- 
bited among all classes ; and among the higher order, probably none at 
all. Sagacious natives began to think in a way they never did before, how 
European knowledge had destroyed the belief of numbers in Hinduism ; 
and how the same knowledge was now seen to coexist with the public 
profession of a foreign faith. This contrast and coincidence in the minds 
of some awakened certain strange thoughts, or rather unshaped phantasms 
of reflection, and ominous forebodings. And others were painfully haunted 
with the fact that a Kulin Brahman, a Brahman of the highest order of 
that priesthood which they had supposed eternal and unchangeable, had 
actually proclaimed the faith of Brahma, a lie, and the abhorred religion 
of Jesus, the Truth. Verily— was the sentiment pent up in many a heart, 
and embodied in many a significant expression,— Verily a blow has been 
struck at the very heart of Hinduism ; the Christian's argument threatens 
to be a more destructive weapon than Mahammad's sword ; this we saw 
and knew how to repel ; but that we perceive not ; who can fight against 
a power unseen ? 

Some of the most disputed points connected with the evangelization 
of India, these baptisms helped materially to settle. 

How often had Europeans objected, that the barrier of caste was iusu- 
perable, and the conversion of Hindus, especially those of the higher caste, 
impossible. By an appeal to the Bible and to facts, this had been proved 
not less impious than false. And now, in the city which contains the 
largest assemblage of Europeans and natives any where congregated in 
India, it met its final deathblow. In reference to these baptisms, a public 
Journalist on the spot thus wrote :— " We look upon these repeated in- 
stances of the renunciation of idolatry, and the public acknowledgment of 
the truth of Christianity, as a refutation of the bold assertions of many, 
that the Hindu will never be converted." 

The fact that numbers had previously embraced the Christian faith, no 
sane man ever attempted to deny. But then there was always some 
drawback or ground of evasion. We were first told that these all con- 
sisted of the lowest and most ignorant of the people, and that ignorance 
led to a nominal profession. In many specific instances, this charge too 
was proved to be unfounded. And the present baptisms afforded incon- 
trovertible confutation ; for the converts were of the most respectable of 
the people ; and had their minds illuminated and enlarged by British liter- 
ature and science. The evidences and doctrines of Christianity they 
could expound and defend with an ability to which not one in ten of the 
traducers of Christian Missions could make the smallest pretension. 

Again, we were told, that if not wholly degraded and ignorant, previous 
converts in general were poor, needy, poverty-stricken creatures ; who, 



657 



having nothing to lose, might have something to gain by assuming the 
name of Christian. This charge, too, had been proved, to say the least, 
most grossly exaggerated. In the present instances, such a charge 
would be palpably false. In reference to these, the Calcutta Journalist 
already quoted, with truth and emphasis, remarks : " There is but little 
probability that any native, especially one of respectability and high caste, 
(of which description were those recently baptized,) will embrace the' 
Christian religion except from the purest and the best of motives,— a sin- 
cere and cordial belief in its truth. It is not compatible with the natural 
disposition of men, to relinquish their hold on worldly advantages without 
a thorough persuasion that they substitute for what they relinquish a 
greater and more substantial good. A Hindu of the class referred to, 
therefore, can entertain no mercenary motives, and no hope of worldly 
influence by renouncing the tenets of Hinduism. He exposes himself to 
persecution, to personal abuse, to the ridicule, contempt, and indignation 
of his relatives and former friends. For what does he do this ? Not for 
pecuniary gain or worldly advantages ; but because he is absolutely con- 
strained, by the all-powerful convictions of his understanding, that Chris- 
tianity is true, and is willing to forsake all, for Christ's sake and the 
Gospel." 

Early one morning, about the beginning of December 1832, another of the 
young men entered my study. After the ordinary salutation, he sat down ; 
and, for a quarter of an hour, opened not his lips. From the expression 
of his countenance, I perceived that he was labouring under some great 
mental conflict ; but could not ascertain its nature or cause. At last, 
bursting into tears, he suddenly broke silence in these words :— « Can I 
be saved ? Shall I have the privilege of being called a son of God, and a 
servant of Jesus Christ ? Shall I be admitted into his holy family ? " 

After the first tumult of emotion was assuaged, he gave an account of the 
manner in which he had been awakened on the previous night —an account 
which was subsequently recorded in writing by himself as follows :— " All 
your Lectures on the Existence of God,— the possibility, probability, and 
certainty of Divine revelation, and the degraded and sinful state of hu- 
man nature, by which we have forfeited all our rights and claims,— I 
heard regularly and attentively ; particularly, the latter parts of each, in 
which you used to push them home into our hearts ; and thought better 
to speak to the heart than to the intellect. But the Lecture of last even- 
ing has affected me more than all the rest, I cannot remember the very 
words ; but the following was the substance of the passages that stirred 
me within :— « If we are all lost sinners before God, do Ave not deserve His 
wrath ? Are you, then, prepared to die and appear before Him ? Should 
any of you like to go to hell, and bear everlasting punishment there ? 
Your answer must be in the negative. Then how will you shun the im- 
pending vengeance ? Should you not be thankful to any one who freed 
you from this deplorable state ? Should you not believe on him, and 
eagerly embrace his doctrines ? Here God is ever gracious and merciful 

T t 



658 

He has opened a new way of deliverance, that is, through Jesus Christ. 
He is the way, the truth, and the life. Those that believe on Him shall 
have eternal life ; and those that do not believe, shall inherit eternal 
punishment. Christ underwent the punishment that is due to us, even 
the death of the Cross. He gave himself a ransom for all ; and He is the 
propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He died for all, that they 
who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him that 
died for them. He invites us with the most warm affection, * Come unto 
me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; ' — so 
let us directly go to him. Let us renounce all our sins and wickedness ; 
and with a humble heart and contrite spirit, let us drink the cup of sal- 
vation which is filled with His precious blood, and inherit the everlasting 
kingdom prepared for the saints.' These, and other such expressions, came 
so forcibly on me, that I began to meditate more closely and solemnly on 
the subject of salvation ; and said within my heart, while sitting in the 
Lecture Hall,— Am I prepared to die ; if required this very night, am I 
prepared to die ? No. Then, why not go to Him, who is ready to receive 
and save me ? If there be no other way but through Him, then, O my 
soul, why not search after that way, and without doubt you will gain the 
harbour ! When I was thinking all this, the meeting was dissolved ; and 
I walked out. I resolved not to go to my own home that night ; but went 
to a friend's, (Baboo K. M. Banerji, recently baptized,) who is dear to me in 
the Lord. All the way from you to him, I had nothing but solemn medi- 
tations — only condemning myself — that, why did I neglect so great a 
salvation ? Why did I spend so much time in rioting and cavilling ? But 
now is the accepted time ; even now, O my soul, neglect not a moment to 
go to Him who is ready to receive you. Such kind of thoughts occupied 
my whole mind while I was on the road, and often recollected the recent 
words delivered by you. When I arrived at Baboo K. M. Banerji's 
house, about ten in the night, I found him surrounded by a number of 
young men, cavilling and criticising your Lecture. I was backward to 
mix in the company, lest I might fall into their snares ; but went and sat 
down in the corner of a separate room, where I had better company than 
theirs. About eleven o'clock, when they went away, Baboo K. inquired 
for me ; and finding me sitting in the room alone, asked the cause of it. 
At first I could not speak, nor express my feelings, but stared at him ; and 
then, with a sorrowful voice, acquainted him with the particulars. He, 
being a Christian, rejoiced in his heart, and strengthened me greatly on the 
subject. I then asked him to join me in prayer ; and after the solemn 
communion with God, I sought his advice as to what I should do ; for I still 
felt very uneasy in my mind. His advice was, to go to you early in the 
morning. Accordingly, after a night of trouble and sorrow, I am here 
to ask you, What shall I do ? Can I be saved ? I am afraid to die. Oh ! 
can I be saved ? " 

It is needless to say how deeply affected I felt at this simple narrative. 
My reply was, in the words of the apostle, " Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'' And, after expatiating to my young 



659 



friend on the theme of" Christ crucified," and commending him in prayer 
to the Lord, he seemed mightily revived in his mind. Indeed, so sudden 
and complete was the relief which he found in believing, and so over- 
joyed was he by the new sense of deliverance through the Cross of Christ, 
that he earnestly wished that very day to be baptized. 

Never have I witnessed so palpably visible a manifestation of the self- 
evidencing power of the Word of God. It was the awakening Word of God 
which, on the preceding evening, had pierced like an arrow into his con- 
science — which left him self-convicted, self-condemned — and made him 
cry out in agony of spirit, Can I be saved ?— and again and again, Can I 
be saved ? His soul, when he first entered my apartment, seemed not 
only overcast with the gloom of anxiety and doubt, but violently agitated 
by the terrors of a condemning law. But the storm and the tumult which 
the Word of God had raised, the same Divine Word was potent to allay. 
The Gospel message appeared suddenly to distil upon the soul like a 
refreshing shower upon the thirsty land 5 after the lowering clouds that 
pealed with thunder, and flashed with lightning, had burst away. He 
now no longer insisted on the removal of particular objections formerly 
brought against certain passages in the Bible. Some of these had resisted 
the influence of every answer. But these now suddenly gave way before the 
breath of a new life ; as leaves that have withstood the storms of winter 
are seen to drop before the fresh reviviscence of vegetative energy in spring. 
He now needed no arguments or reasonings to persuade him of the suit- 
ableness and all-sufficiency of the sacrifice on Calvary. In the announce- 
ment of " the glad tidings," the Spirit of God seemed, as it were, in a mo- 
ment to remove the scales from his darkened vision. Groaning under the 
disease of sin and the load of guilt, he simply looked to the Saviour on 
the Cross ; he looked with the eye of faith, and felt himself made whole 
and disburdened. Could he doubt the efficiency and sufficiency of the 
healing virtue that streamed from the fountain of Immanuel's blood ? No. 
He experienced the fulness of its power. Doubt its efficacy to save ? — No 
more than the blind whose eyes are opened, or the deaf whose ears are 
unstopped, or the lame whose feet are made to walk, can doubt the effi- 
cacy of the means that have actually restored them to light and liberty 1 
Doubt its sufficiency to satisfy ? — No more than the famished man can 
doubt the sufficiency of a sumptuous banquet to appease his hunger, after 
he has actually partaken of it ; or the naked man the sufficiency of robes 
of purple to cover his nakedness, after he is actually clothed in them ! No. 
Led by Divine grace, he came and found Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of 
God, the Saviour of the world ; and instantly did he cling to him as " all 
his salvation and all his desire." He came, he saw, and was healed. He 
came sorrowing and mourning in anguish of spirit : He went away re- 
joicing with a joy unspeakable and full of glory 

Soon after this he was publicly admitted into the visible Church by bap- 
tism. 

After these baptisms had taken place, the state of things among the 



660 

Educated Natives had become wholly changed. At the outset of the 
course of Lectures, all were nearly of one heart and one mind, — every 
heart being inflamed with a fiery rage against Hinduism —every mind en- 
graven with a negative Atheism, or a positive anti-Theism. But after hav- 
ing been incessantly engaged for upwards of a twelvemonth, we found, at 
the commencement of 1833, the original confederacy broken into fragments 
of a very dissimilar composition. Some of those who were formerly dis- 
tinguished as haughty leaders in the ranks of a reckless Atheism, had now 
been admitted into the Christian Church, as humble disciples of the meek 
and lowly Jesus. A few, without being yet baptized, openly acknowledged 
their belief in Christianity ; and gave evidence of vital impressions having 
been produced in their hearts. These might be reckoned of the order of 
catechumens. Besides these two classes, a considerable number did not 
scruple to avow their conviction that the Bible contained a true revelation 
from God ; but were staggered at our representation of its doctrines, par- 
ticularly the doctrine of the Trinity. These were a sort of Demi-believers 
or Socinians ; who were still desirous of carrying on the important inquiries 
on which they had embarked. A fourth party professed not to be alto- 
gether satisfied with the evidences, and yet did not see well how they 
could be invalidated. These neither positively believed nor positively 
disbelieved ; and thus, quivering in the balance between dubiety and cer- 
tainty, formed a class of Demi-infidels, who also wished to be considered 
as inquirers after truth. A fifth section distinctly proclaimed their dis- 
belief in the Divine authority of the Bible ; its morality they did not he- 
sitate to admire, but on no higher ground than they might admire any 
good precepts or maxims in Manu, or Socrates, or Confucius. These consti- 
tuted a school of Deists, who were yet not unwilling to be enrolled in the 
catalogue of inquirers. Apart from all these divisions, there existed a 
sixth ; which entirely threw off the mask it at one time assumed. These 
openly declared, that they neither believed nor wished to believe,— -that 
they neither admitted the truth of Christianity, nor would any longer 
trouble themselves with an investigation into its evidence or doctrines,— 
in a word, that they cared nothing about the matter, and would have no- 
thing more to do with it. These— resolved not to run the hazard of re- 
proach, or worldly loss, which might be suspended on the contingency of 
conviction,— above all, resolved not to abandon their habits and propen- 
sities— seemed from the first, predetermined to shut their eyes against the 
light of evidence ; their grand maxim being, " Let us eat, drink, and be 
merry, for to-morrow we die." They had originally professed themselves 
inquirers, not from a sincere desire to learn, but from a hearty resolve, if 
possible, to expose Christianity in the weakness of its evidence and the 
absurdity of its doctrines ; and to cover its public advocate with shame and 
confusion. Having signaUy failed in their campaign against the truth, they 
gradually withdrew their presence altogether; and returned to wallow un- 
molested in the mire of sinful vanities. In the meantime, having repeat- 
edly done violence to the dictates of natural reason, and the promptings 
of natural feeling, they latterly became far more blinded in their under- 



661 



standings, hardened in their hearts, and seared in their consciences than 
at the beginning-. They hated the light, because their deeds were evil ; 
and in the end appeared to give fatal evidence of being wholly given up to 
a reprobate mind. So true is the declaration, that where the, Gospel be- 
comes not the savour of life unto life, it is sure to prove " the savour of 
death unto death." 

To meet the wants of individuals differing so widely in sentiment, a 
new system of operations was commenced about the beginning of 1 833. 

1. For those who had given credible evidence of being true believers, 
whether baptized or as yet unbaptized, a private week-day class was opened 
for the more systematic study of Christian evidence and doctrine in the 
minutest details ; in order that they might be the better panoplied to en- 
gage in the gathering warfare with the enemies of the truth ; and also a 
Sunday class for the reading of the Scriptures, and other practical and 
devotional exercises, in order that their own souls might be continuously 
fed, and grow in grace, till they attained to the stature of perfect men in 
Christ Jesus. 

2. For all who admitted in any form, definite or indefinite, the Divine 
authority of the Bible, but who entertained the most discordant views of 
the nature of its contents, there was commenced a specific course of pub- 
lic Lectures. In this course the object to be accomplished, if possible, 
was twofold :— First, to deduce from the Bible, by an application of the 
established rules of criticism, the system of doctrines and duties therein 
propounded as the standard of faith and the guide of practice ; and se- 
condly, to obviate, as far as practicable, the prodigious mass of objections 
that arose from different passages scattered up and down the sacred 
pages. The former object might have been accomplished most directly 
by following an arrangement similar to that adopted and almost conse- 
crated by most of our leading confessions of faith and systems of divinity 
in Europe. Such a plan, however, would not have answered so well the 
latter purpose, as it would have excluded the consideration of a multitude 
of those very passages most frequently objected to by the unbeliever and 
the scoffer. 

But why not, it may be said, take up all such passages separately ? Let 
any enlightened believer try to satisfy his own mind by so doing ! And 
if he cannot, how is he to remove the scruples and objections of the un- 
believer ? The truth is, that the very source of the difficulties often con- 
sists in perversely resolving to view certain parts of the Bible as de- 
tached and isolated from all other parts, — that the very source of weak- 
ness and unsatisfactoriness in many of the answers given to objectors, 
consists in the attempt to vindicate such parts on their own independent 
merits. Look at the husbandman scattering his seeds in the cold earth : 
view the fact of these seeds mouldering into corruption wholly apart from 
any consideration of the expected treasures of harvest ; and would you 
not reckon the act of sowing a prognostic of consummate folly ? So in 
the Bible, an incident or a doctrine, a character or a fact, an ordinance or 
a prediction, when separated from its proper connection with what precedes 



662 



and follows it not in the same chapter merely but in other books, may 
often be held up to ridicule and to scorn. And he who is unwary enough 
to allow himself to be entrapped in the snare of supposing that he is bound 
to vindicate every part on its own separate footing, may institute a de- 
fence which, like an unsuccessful sally from a garrison, can only tend to 
weaken his own cause, and expose his stronghold to more vigorous onsets 
from a watchful foe. 

Again, by viewing some of the difficult passages separately — more par- 
ticularly in the Old Testament, — their true scope not being discerned, they 
are often taxed with imaginary meanings, and then scouted as foolish, or 
frivolous, or worse. To recur to our former example : — If, in witnessing 
the cheerfulness of countenance and vigour of limb displayed by the hus- 
bandman in his labours in spring, we should assert that the promotion of 
health was his immediate and sole end, and salutary exercise in this par- 
ticular mode, his chosen means for securing it ; or, if we should allege an 
end wholly fictitious, and maintain that he prepared the soil, and deposited 
the seed exclusively for the pleasure of tracing a subsequent process of 
decay : — in either case, we might display what we mistook for excellent 
wit in heaping charges of folly or extravagance upon the man ; when, in 
the view of intelligent beings, we might all the while be only making an 
ostentatious parade of our own folly and ignorance. How fitly does this 
represent the treatment which certain portions of the Word of God have 
experienced at the hands of thoughtless, ignorant, unreasonable men. How 
have they, times and ways without number, by seizing on isolated passages, 
formed the most meagre and inadequate conceptions ; as well as feigned 
the most false construction of ends, purposes, and motives ! How often 
have they then turned round, and charged the Bible with absurdity or in- 
justice ; which the Bible itself, if duly examined, would be found most 
loudly and unsparingly to condemn ! 

Now, if the source of the error has been the severing of passages from the 
main body of Revelation, and gazing at them, like bleak and solitary crags 
rent and hurled from their proper position and connection with the sur- 
rounding landscape, the real source of vindication must be in the restoring 
of these to their appropriate place, and in the viewing of them in their 
appropriate bearing and relation to the whole of the spiritual scenery. 
In other words, in solving the difficulties of particular passages, it ought 
ever to be remembered and counted on, that the Bible is the Word of 
Him u to whom are known all his works from the beginning of the world ;" 
that the whole exhibits one grand and comprehensive scheme, consist- 
ing of a multitude of parts, which embrace every diversity of topic, and 
every variety of event, along the whole extended tract of time. It 
will then be found that that, — which, when separately contemplated, 
might be easily exposed to many a hostile charge, — may, when exhibited in 
its natural dependence, with light radiated upon it from a hundred points, 
contiguous and remote, become a theme of positive admiration and praise. 

Now, the leading principle and topic of this all-embracing scheme, is 
the work of redemption. But the nature of this work, both as regards its 



663 



design, and the agency for its accomplishment, has not been announced 
in a series of abstract propositions, or categorical aphorisms. No. Its 
announcement has been in the form of an historical narrative. Hence, 
though the Bible consists of a collection of books, the greater part of these 
are not to be viewed as separate or independent treatises. For one prin- 
cipal end pervades the whole ; — even the work of redemption through 
Jesus Christ, the Lord from heaven. That this is the main scope of the 
Bible, we need not stop here to prove. In this, both the Old and New Tes- 
taments perfectly concur. The law and the prophets form one continued 
prophecy of the contents of the New ; and the Gospels and Epistles one 
continued commentary on the contents of the Old — the substance of both 
being Christ. 

But how does this,it may be asked, appear ; seeing that no direct or literal 
mention has been made of Christ, particularly in the law and historical writ- 
ings ? It appears in a way the most intelligible. Let it be remembered that 
* all the works of God are progressive. Creation itself, though instantaneous 
in the separate individual acts, was yet gradual as a series of results. 
And every vital form, whether in the domain of animal or of vegetable life, 
has its embryo state, and almost imperceptible progress towards maturity. 
In like manner, agreeable to the analogy which pervades all the works of 
the Almighty, the great plan of redemption was to be gradually developed 
through a long succession of ages — to receive periodical accessions from ac- 
credited messengers — to brighten into noonday glory when the promised 
seed appeared — and, unlike the work of material creation, still destined to 
roll on, unfolding new fruitage for ever and ever. This plan of redeeming 
love was the great purpose which God purposed from eternity. And if so, 
could He be ignorant of its details ? Impossible. To the eye of Omniscience 
the whole world appeared stretched out in prospective, with an accuracy in- 
finitely greater than that with which the past can appear to us in retrospect. 
If then, we can describe the past ; with how much greater precision could 
God delineate the future ! Let this be denied, and we reduce divinity to 
the level of frail humanity. If we can use words as signs of ideas which 
have already arisen in the mind, much more can God employ symbols to 
denote ideas, plans, and purposes, hereafter to be unfolded. If we can 
construct fables, allegories, and parables, for the portraiture of past ac- 
tions or events or instructions already delivered, much more can God, in 
condescension to our weakness, adopt similar and more perfect modes for 
setting forth actions, events, and instructions hereafter to be more fully 
made known :— Hence, to His all-comprehending mind, the future must 
stand more clearly disclosed than the past does to ours. 

Now, as the scheme was not to be revealed at once, in what way could 
it best be intimated without a premature disclosure of the whole ? No 
method can appear more exquisitely adapted to the purpose than the em- 
ployment of a language of expressive symbols aptly chosen — a language 
correctly representing what was afterwards to appear without a covering. 
As a simple illustration of what is meant by emblematical language, taken 
from ordinary human records, let us refer to a well-known circumstance 



664 



related concerning the followers of a certain unfortunate monarch in his 
exile. It is said that these had seals engraven with the device of " an 
oak cut down, yet encircled with its ivy," — bearing the appropriate in- 
scription, " I cling to the fallen." Here it is undoubted that the emblem 
represents what is naturally and literally true,— viz., that ivy does cling to 
its mother-tree though fallen. And to persons ignorant of the history, 
this is all the meaning which it might convey. But who, that knew the 
circumstances, would for a moment believe that this was the primary truth 
thereby intended ? Who could for a moment doubt, that there was a 
tacit but direct reference to another somewhat analogous truth, which 
was really the principal one ? 

In like manner, from actual existences, natural, ceremonial, or historic, 
God, in His wisdom, did choose emblems, apt and multiform, to represent 
other realities. These unquestionably expressed what was literally and 
absolutely true. Yet, did they envelope some higher truth — even as 
the body forms only the vehicle of the soul or spirit. The natural 
literal sense was true ; but it was by no means the principal sense, 
in the view of Him who selected the event or image. The fact, or 
the incident, or the action chosen, was historically true ; but often in 
itself unimportant, and in its nature generally transitory. It was the 
ulterior object typified that formed the truth which endureth for ever. 
From almost every object and event, beginning with the transactions in 
Paradise — descending through the eventful history of the patriarchs — the 
Mosaic ritual — the wanderings and journeyings of the Israelites — the vic- 
tories and defeats of their kings — the establishment and overthrow of 
their kingdom, — there has been framed a language of sensible signs — an 
emblematic or parabolic language, shadowing forth great and substantial 
truths. And thus it is that all historic characters, events, and circum- 
stances, so studiously recorded in the Old Testament — down even to the 
minutest items of the drapery of the tabernacle, or of the varied 
ornaments of the temple, — are at once rescued from meanness and obscu- 
rity, and raised to honour and dignity by being the symbols divinely 
chosen for conveying intimations of truths deeply interesting to the whole 
race of man. These symbols or devices, which resemble Solomon's 
" net-work of silver, enclosing apples of gold," were constantly accumulat- 
ing till they had embraced the whole of the history of God's peculiar 
people throughout its apparently most insignificant details, and had con- 
verted the whole of the visible works of the Almighty into one vast maga- 
zine of expressive emblems for pourtraying those glorious truths which were 
visibly to shine forth, in the life, sufferings, and triumphs of the long-ex- 
pected Messiah. So that the whole of the Old Testament becomes one 
great and comprehensive system of rough draughts or outlines, — and the 
New, one perpetual system of admirable correspondencies in the form of 
finished pictures. Or, to adopt the striking figure employed by a great 
living Divine, the one resembles the terrestrial sphere, with its heights and 
depths and rugged eminencies ; the other, a resplendent concave let down 
from heaven's canopy, with singular adaptations in the shape of hollows 



665 



and prominences, which fit in and fill up the varied surface of earth- 
reducing the whole into one vast plain, bathed in floods of celestial light. 

Hence, we may remark in passing, the fell and deadly mischief 
which may eventually be inflicted on Divine truth by the sacred ora- 
cles being riven asunder, and exclusively presented in loose, isolated, un- 
connected fragments, to the minds of youth, in any system, whether pri- 
vate or national. It cannot be too often repeated, and in opposing infidels, 
our sole vantage-ground often consists in being able to repeat, that the 
Bible is a comprehensive whole,— and that the scheme of redemption, in 
its preparation and completion, is the connecting chain which exhibits all 
the parts in their just proportion, and mutual relations, and combined sig- 
nificancy. Break the system into pieces ; present it in dislocated extracts, 
denuded of its harmonizing clew and it will require only the rack of in- 
fidel ingenuity to make some portions appear wholly unworthy or frivolous, 
and others sterile or strangely incongruous,— a collection of dry accounts 
and enigmatic oracles— a congeries of frigid rites and unintelligible forms— 
a mass of trivial littlenesses or senile dotages— an assemblage of cruel com- 
mands and harsh prohibitions ! But let the Bible be presented as a whole ; 
let it be viewed as the great historic chart of heaven ;— gradually disclos- 
ing, and finally sealing the great salvation accomplished through the 
incarnation and death of that glorious personage of whom, in glowing 
anticipation, Moses and all the prophets downwards wrote ; and concerning 
whom, after his appearance, in as glowing retrospect, Evangelists and 
Apostles spoke, and wrote, and preached to the ends of the earth ;— then, 
in defiance of all the legions of infidelity, may the precious volume be 
raised aloft on the Christian standard in fore-front of the battle, enshrined 
in a light and glory all its own. 

It cannot be denied, that in an extract, however short and unconnected, 
yea, even in a single sentence, there may be a seed of life, which, if im- 
planted in an open, candid, and ingenuous soul, may grow up into fruit- 
fulness. But the overwhelming majority of mankind are not of this de- 
scription ; and it is to the state and wants of the majority, that general 
plans and systems must always be adapted. Besides, even in the former 
case, there would be a sad defalcation in the means of enjoyment and 
progressive advancement. 

It is true that when one is parched with thirst, his immediate craving 
and necessary want may be satisfied by the supply of a cup of water from 
the running brook. But it is not less true, that could we conduct him 
along its banks, and elevate him to some commanding eminence, whence 
issues a little spring, that flows into a rill,— and increases into a rivulet,— 
and swells into a mighty stream — fertilizing many a fair province in its 
passage to the ocean ;— it is not less true, that to the mere satisfying of 
the demands of nature, there would now be superadded a new charm — 
a new species of intellectual enjoyment in the view of such wide and 
varied magnificence of prospect. In like manner, it is true that, if the 
thirstings of a soul spiritually parched, be quenched by a single draught of 
the water of life which maketli glad the city of our G od, all that is absolutely 



666 



necessary has been accomplished. But, could we ascend to the first spring 
of promise in Paradise — to the fountainhead of the whole vast series of 
announcements of a Saviour and the great salvation — emitting its almost 
undistinguished rill, which gradually enlarges as it advances — gathering 
strength, and fulness, and beauty, as it glides down through successive 
periods of time — cheering many a barren sand with verdure, and many a 
desert waste with luxuriance, in its onward progress to the ocean of eter- 
nity ; — Oh, what soul would not be elated with feelings of new and un- 
wonted enjoyment in the view of a scene so boundless and sublime ? 

In order, therefore, critically to unfold the leading doctrines and precepts 
of the Bible ; and at the same time review all the passages that had been 
repeatedly made the ground of objections ; — it was resolved at once to 
take the Bible itself as the sole book. It was resolved to begin with the 
account of the creation and the fall ; and thence to trace the rise, progress, 
and consummation of the work of redemption after the order of develope- 
ment, and agreeably to the method of instruction adopted by the Spirit of 
God himself. It was resolved to consider all the institutions, incidents, 
and events, which had occasioned difficulties and doubts ; and to contem- 
plate these chiefly in the light so largely reflected on them all by their 
connection, immediate or accessory, with the gradually expanding scheme 
of redemption. It was resolved to intersperse the whole with such prac- 
tical exhortations and appeals, as might be naturally suggested by the 
subjects discussed. 

3. For those who were in whole or in part, unbelievers in the divine 
origin of Christianity, there was commenced a new series of Public ad- 
dresses and discussions on the subject of the evidences. 

Here we cannot but specially refer to one very noticeable effect which 
had been produced by the prelections and discussions in which we were 
so long engaged ; and that was, the general, if not universal suppres- 
sion of avowed Atheism. The sheer folly and staring irrationality of any 
scheme or modification of Atheism had become so palpably obtrusive, 
that, whatever some might * think in their heart," no one now would 
venture to rise up in the presence of his fellows, and, with his lips, 
declare, a there is no God." If any one could muster so much of bad 
bravery as to give utterance to the daring expression, he was sure 
of being shouted down, by acclamation, as u a fool." Who will say 
that this itself was not a most desirable result ? If no higher end had 
been attained, who could say that our labours had been all in vain ? 
But God, in the riches of His grace, had been pleased to crown our 
most unworthy exertions with the nobler first-fruits of a coming har- 
vest. Some had already heard and obeyed the voice of Christ, and actu- 
ally entered his fold ; others were preparing to follow ; numbers were 
persuaded that it was really a voice from heaven, which spoke to them in 
the Bible, though they were yet undetermined as to its precise import ; 
and even in the ranks of Infidelity there was no champion bold enough 
to head the most anti-human of all heresies,— that which denies the being 
of a God. Accordingly, when the new or second course of lectures on 



667 



religious evidence was commenced, it was not found necessary to advert to the 
proofs of the being and attributes of God at all. Every one professing to believe 
in the existence of a great First Cause, unbounded in power, wisdom, and 
goodness, we were enabled at once to begin with the evidence of revealed 
religion. The subject of the very first night's address -was, « the pos- 
sibility, probability, and desirableness of a revelation from God to man." 

Another very natural and visible effect was, the exceedingly subdued tone 
assumed by those who still gloried in unbelief. When we first began, In- 
fidelity like a young>arrior, had, as yet, been only a learner in the art of 
war. It had but newly emerged from the discipline of its military col- 
lege ; it had not entered the field of actual strife; it had not measured 
strength with any foeman. Flushed with hope, and buoyant with confi- 
dence, it fondly hoped that the whole world was open before it ; and 
that it had nought to do but to go forth "conquering and to conquer." 
The very imagination of defeat had not, even as a shadow, crossed its 
path. The first onset was, accordingly, fierce and vehement. And though 
again, and again arrested, if not repulsed, in its headlong career, it was 
long ere it could brook the humbling confession of rout and discomfiture. 
When, however, we commenced 'the second time, the state of things 
was greatly changed. Infidelity had thrown down the gauntlet of defiance ; 
the chaUenge was received, and warmly responded to, by Truth. In the 
conflict, Infidelity was laid prostrate ; Truth, in its omnipotence, prevailed. 
Still, though Infidelity was stripped of much of its glory and renown; and 
greatly shattered in its strength, by the loss of some of its standard bearers, 
and the oscitancy or paralysis of others, it was by no means captive or dead. 
Jmm lived, and fain would renew the combat ; but no longer stalked 
abroad so fearlessly in the face of day, with head erect, and haughty 
mien, vauntingly defying the armies of the faithful. Abroad, it put on 
airs of moderation or blandishment or complaisance or charity ; in pri- 
vate, it clothed itself in rancour, and venom, and deadly hate. It preferred 
a cowardly stiletto warfare, to a manly encounter in the open field. 

To this decided change in the external aspect of things, the Editor of 
the Enquirer thus distinctly pointed, in his Journal, about the end of 1832. 
" We are surprised to find that the Champions of Infidelity are no longer 
to be seen in the field <ff battle. What can be their reasons ? Are they 
defeated ? If so, we call upon them as honest men to come forward and 
make this declaration, and embrace Christianity. Are they only silenced, 
and not convinced ? We invite them as inquirers after truth, to the 
Lectures of Mr D., whose avowed object is to explain that system. If, after 
being defeated, they shall not embrace Christianity, or being unsettled, 
will not inquire, we weep over their case, we pity them, from our heart. 
The happiness we enjoy at present, makes us the more solicitous about theirs. 
Our happiness wiU be increased tenfold, if we can recall to the temple of 
truth those who have gone astray. We ourselves, wandered with them in 
that dark wilderness, not long ago ; and the ease of mind which we now 
possess, compared to that which is recently past, gives us a lively sketch 
of the misery of theirs. But they do not understand us when we say, we 



668 



are happy through the grace of God. This, to them, is mysterious lan- 
guage. We shall not, therefore, address them on this ground ; we will do 
it on their own. Why do they not inquire about the evidences of Chris- 
tianity ? &c, &c, &c. We have embraced Christianity. They know 
how long we withstood its approach ; and now that we have changed our 
sentiments, they must ascribe this change either to foul dishonesty or to 
a conviction of the truth of Christianity. In conclusion, we tell them 
again, that they are in the most tremendous danger. And if they do not 
feel this, we beg all Christians to pray for them." 

This shyness on the part of unbelievers, to come forward as heretofore, 
and boldly confront the advocates of truth, rendered it necessary to resort 
to an expedient to draw them forth, so as to be fairly within the reach of 
wholesome influences. The expedient consisted simply in this : — instead 
of any longer Lecturing in the first instance, ex cathedra, I was to take my 
station among the body of Unbelievers. They and I were to select, each, 
a chairman, as our representatives ; whose office and duty it should be to 
X>reside and arbitrate between the opposing parties. The subject for dis- 
cussion was to be duly announced, a week beforehand, so that all con- 
cerned might have ample time to prepare themselves for the debate. On 
the appointed evening, it was my province, statedly, to open the discussion, 
in a short address ; — any one present being at liberty to reply ; and so on, 
alternately, till the Presidents might decide that the subject had been 
exhausted. 

In consequence of this arrangement, a revived freshness of interest was 
thrown around the subject of the Christian Evidences ; and many were 
encouraged to come forward, and calmly, and temperately, discuss the 
momentous questions at issue. After a few months, some of the lead- 
ing oppositionists finding all their arguments refuted, and themselves 
silenced, began gradually, to withdraw from the public meeting. To 
avoid what they unhappily reckoned the disgrace of personal defeat, 
instead of the glory of renouncing detected error, they chose rather 
to attack the Evidences and Doctrines of Christianity, anonymously, 
through the medium of the Native Newspapers. This change of 
tactics on their part, immediately led to the adoption of a counteractive 
expedient on ours. In whatever newspaper any hostile article, worthy of 
being noticed, appeared, we instantly sent an advertisement to be inserted 
in the next number ; — setting forth, that on a specified evening, we would, 
in the Public Lecture Room, make that article our text ; lay bare its fal- 
lacies, and vindicate the opposing truth ; at the same time, challenging 
the anonymous writer, or any of his friends, openly to come forward and 
manfully defend their opinions, or be for ever branded as " cowardly as- 
sassins" of the souls of their countrymen. 

This new method of procedure gave a prodigious and unexpected sti- 
mulus to a cause, the public interest in which, from its very nature, had 
begun somewhat to languish. Curiosity was roused to the quick. No one 
knew beforehand, whether the anonymous writer galled at the challenge, 
and the alternative therein presented, might not be provoked to appear with- 



669 



out a mask, and in person boldly assume the responsibility of maintaining 
his own sentiments. At all events, it was believed, that one, or other whose 
opinions were represented in the published articles, would be roused to 
act on the defensive. In this way, week after week, the Lecture Hall 
was more than crowded ; and much of the seed of precious truth was scat- 
tered in a soil which the very determinedness of opposition had unwittingly 
and unwillingly prepared. 

In the month of May or June of the next year, a new English service 
was commenced, on the Sunday evenings, in the Bungalau Chapel which 
had been erected, chiefly for preaching in the vernacular language. 

These various operations with many others, were all interrupted for 
two months, towards the end of 1833, in consequence of severe illness, 
which brought me to the very brink of the grave. About the beginning of 
1834, they were all again resumed, with certain modifications and additions. 

Finding that many who believed the Bible to be from God, were threat- 
ening finally to cast anchor in the haven of Socinianism, we then resolved 
to commence a separate weekly course of Lectures, specifically devoted to 
the Socinian Controversy. These were attended by considerable numbers. 

Finding also, that the grand magazine, whence were derived by far 
the most plausible and subtile objections, continued still to be a system 
of false blaspheming metaphysics, we also resolved to open a public class 
for the study of Mental Philosophy. To prevent as much as possible all 
idle and unprofitable discussions, on a theme of such lawless uncertainty, 
by at once presenting something tangible and solid to the mind, it was 
agreed that a text-book should be adopted ; and that all who wished to 
be present should furnish themselves with a copy. That which most 
readily offered itself to us, was the new edition in an 8vo. volume, of the 
late Dr T. Brown's Lectures, with a prefixed Memoir, by Dr Welsh. 
This class was attended by upwards of thirty ; who vigorously started, with 
the determination to examine the foundations, and canvass the Baconian 
principles of Mental and Moral Science. 

Early in April, all these and other operations were a second time 
arrested by severe illness. In June they were all, once more, amid 
many infirmities recommenced. About the beginning of July, hoAvever, 
they were again suspended, for the third and last time ; and that too, 
at the very moment when they seemed to bud most luxuriantly with 
promise. The lecturer was then seized with a malady which in two 
days left medical advisers no alternative but to -determine to hurry 
him on board the very first ship which sailed for England, as the 
only expedient that held out the remotest prospect of preserving life. 
Mysteriously severed from a field which it was his own resolution never 
to abandon, and at a season when the crisis for reaping a more extensive 
harvest was hastening apace, he found himself, before the end of July, 
afloat at the mouth of the Ganges, — as shattered a wreck as was ever saved 
from final destruction, after being so violently stranded on an Indian 
shore. Through the unsearchable riches of the Divine mercy, towards 
one whose secret consciousness testifies that he is one of the least worthy ; 



670 



yea, one of the "less than the least of all saints," health and strength have 
been gradually restored. And now, as a living monument of God's 
marvellous grace and long-suffering patience, he is about to set forth once 
more to proclaim Jehovah's loving-kindnesses towards the unhappy sons 
of India. 

From the extent and variety of incidents and topics introduced into 
the preceding narrative, the number of inferences and reflections that na- 
turally arise cannot well be estimated. A tithe of them it is impossible 
even cursorily to notice. We must, therefore, be content with selecting 
two or three from the superabounding mass. 

I. In what has been advanced, we find a practical illustration of 
the design, use, and value of the external evidences of Christianity, in 
conducting certain departments of missionary labour, or that great work 
which aims at the evangelization of the world. 

The two leading branches of external evidence are prophecy and mira- 
cles. The design of these we may learn, not from mere human authority, 
but from the infallible Word of God. 

Jehovah Himself appeals to the evidence of prophecy, as supplying in- 
contestible proof of His Divine presence, and, by consequence, His Su- 
preme Divinity, as contradistinguished from idols and the oracles of the 
heathen. " Remember," says He, by the mouth of His servant, " the 
former things of old ; for I am God, and there is none else : I am God, and 
there is none like Me ; declaring the end from the beginning, and from 
ancient times the things that are not yet done." Again, " Produce your 
cause, saith Jehovah : let them bring forth, and show us what will happen. 
Show us things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are 
gods. Behold, ye are of nothing." How often, in the Old Testament, 
is the verification of prophecy by the event, referred to as a proof that 
Jehovah had verily spoken by the mouth of his servants ? In the New, 
Jesus Christ distinctly appealed to the ancient prophecies in proof of His 
own Messiahship. " To Him bear all the prophets witness." The fulfil- 
ment of His own predictions confirmed the faith of His disciples.— John 
chap, ii., 22, &c. 

As to the Divine intent of miracles, what means the complaint of Moses, 
when appointed God's ambassador to the house of Israel ? And what are 
we to infer from the mode in which the burden of the complaint was in- 
stantaneously removed by God himself ? This subject is recorded at large 
in Exodus, chap. iv. Here Moses, by his profound knowledge of human 
nature, distinctly anticipated the case of individuals challenging him to pro- 
duce the credentials which might attest the Divine origin of the message he 
was commissioned to deliver. Did God treat the anticipation as foolish or 
unreasonable ? By no means : He at once supplied His servant with creden- 
tials of his authority. He put into his hand a " rod," by which he was to 
work « signs and wonders " in the sight of the people "— " signs and won- 



671 



ders " which would extort the confession that the finger of God was there. 
Jesus Himself appealed to His miracles as an attestation of His Divine 
mission. John the Baptist sent his disciples to inquire, " Art thou He 
that should come, or do we look for another? And in the same hour He 
cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and to many that were blind 
he gave sight. Then Jesus answering them, said, Go your way, and tell 
John what things ye have seen and heard • how that the blind see, the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up ; and 
blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." To His miracles 
He appealed, as leaving His enemies without excuse : " The works which 
my Father hath given me to do, they bear witness of me, that the Father 
hath sent me." To His own disciples His appeal was—" Believe me that 
I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very 
works' sake." And the Evangelists assure us that, in consequence of the 
miracles, many did believe and glorify God. After witnessing the per- 
formance of some of them, the natural exclamation was—" We have seen 
strange things to-day "—« A great Prophet is risen amongst us"— « God 
hath visited His people." "Many," says John, "believed in His name 
when they saw the miracles which He did." « Rabbi," confessed Nico- 
demus, " we know that thou art a Teacher sent from God j for no man 
can do those miracles which thou doest, except God be with him." And 
how often, throughout the Acts and the Epistles, do we find the apostles, 
with the utmost boldness and assurance, appealing to "the signs and won- 
ders" which they every where performed in the name of Jesus, as de- 
monstrative evidence that God was with them, and that they spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost ? 

From all these, and other similar passages of Scripture, what do we 
learn ? Is it not that prophecies and miracles were designed by God 
Himself as visible incontestible proofs of His own uncontrolled supremacy 
— as infallible credentials of His own accredited messengers— as indis- 
putable seals and signatures to attest and authenticate the truth of His 
own revelation? Are not these grand, solemn, and magnificent pur- 
poses ? Are not the means and the end alike worthy of Him who is the 
greatest, the wisest, and the best of Beings ? And such being the di- 
vinely instituted design of the evidences arising from miracles and pro- 
phecies, how can they be disparaged in the slightest degree, without cast- 
ing contempt on the express declarations and revealed purposes of God 
Himself? 

But it has been thought by some that, though such evidences were 
deemed indispensable towards authenticating a message from heaven at 
the time of its original promulgation, they are no longer necessary. Such 
persons it might be enough to address as follows : — Has God ever done any 
thing in vain ? Never. But did He not in ancient times actually supply 
external evidences, to attest the truth of His own revelation ? Undoubt- 
edly. And why so ? Assuredly because He who well knew the nature 
of man, must have regarded these as not only suitable to his mental con- 
stitution, but somehow necessary to meet his reasonable wants. Has then 



672 



the nature of man undergone any decided alteration since the days of 
prophets and apostles ? None whatever. In every essential feature it is 
now what it has ever been since the day that Adam fell. From all this, 
what must be the inevitable inference ? Is it not that those characteris- 
tics of human nature which, in the eye of Omniscience, appeared to de- 
mand the exhibition of external evidences in the times of old, must equally 
demand the same still ; seeing that that nature has ever since continued 
without any radical modification or change ? 

Leaving, however, such an abstract line of argument, we would at once put 
it to the persons in view — Supposing ye were situated as it was my lot once 
to be, how would you have acted ? Before me were numbers of unbelievers. 
Most gladly would 1 have preached unto them, without a moment's de- 
lay, the unsearchable riches of Christ ; but they would not allow me. They 
would not listen to such preaching. " Prove to us," said they, " that 
Christianity is from God ; and we will then, but not till then, reckon it 
worth our while to examine into its contents." What was I, in such 
peculiar circumstances, to do ? Must I tell them that, in former times, 
abundant proofs were furnished of the Divine origin of Christianity, but that 
these were no longer necessary ? If I had spoken in this way, how would they 
have raised the shout of derision and scorn ! — How would they have gone 
away with the undoubting impression that Christianity was an imposture, 
and myself either the wilful abettor, or the deluded dupe of the imposition ? 
Here then, if ever, was a case in which the exhibition of evidences 
would prove as advantageous, and was as imperatively demanded, as in 
the days of prophets and apostles. Again, I ask, How was I to proceed ? 
I was not commissioned to utter prophecies, nor empowered to work 
miracles. Had Providence then left me without remedy, and the cause 
of Heaven without means of defence ? No : blessed be God's holy name, 
He had put within my reach means ample and abundant to demonstrate to 
the full satisfaction of all candid and unprejudiced minds, that prophecies 
had been verily delivered and fulfilled ; and miracles the most stupendous 
verily wrought. And must I rob the cause of the Redeemer of one of its 
triumphs, by sullenly refusing to employ these means ? If I did, I should 
have been guilty of the worst species of sacrilege — a sacrilege which would 
have shorn the Gospel of its glory, and immortal souls of their eternal 
heritage % But I had not so learned Christ. I cheerfully undertook to 
unfold the external evidences of Christianity : and what was the result ? It 
was, first, that not a few were led to forsake the ranks of infidelity, and 
publicly avow their belief in the Bible, as an authentic revelation from 
God. It was, secondly, that some of these, — having had their attention tho- 
roughly roused, and their minds solemnized by the resistless proofs of Di- 
vine interposition presented to their understanding, — were thence led dili- 
gently to inquire into the contents of the Sacred Volume ; and, in prosecut- 
ing this inquiry, had their souls awakened, and converted to the Saviour ! 

From all this ought we not to learn highly to appreciate the divinely 
intended design of the external evidences, as attestations of the supreme 
authority of a professed revelation from heaven ; and highly to appreciate 



673 



their use and value as divinely appointed means not of conversion, but to- 
wards conversion ? 

As this latter point has been gravely questioned in quarters whence 
different views might have been expected to emanate, I must be excused 
for pressing it on the serious attention of the reader. Of the means 
divinely instituted for bringing sinners under the power of the truth 
as it is in Jesus, some are proximate, others remote ; some direct, 
others indirect ; some mediate, others immediate ; some preparatory, 
others ultimate. Each order of means has its own place, its own 
specific value in the economy of Providence and Grace. Each, therefore, 
ought to be prized and honoured in the proportion designed by God Him- 
self, the Author, Administrator, and Sanctifier of them all. If, then, it be 
conceded that the reading, teaching, or preaching of the Word is the 
proximate, immediate, direct, or ultimate means of conversion, what are 
we to say of the evidences appointed by God Himself to attest the truth, 
and bespeak attention to the Word read, taught, or preached ? As means of 
conversion, these may be termed remote, mediate, indirect, or prepara- 
tory ; but are they on that account to be slighted, if their legitimate tendency 
is to lead to the use of those means which are proximate, immediate, direct, 
or ultimate ? Granting that the expression a means of conversion," is 
more strictly applicable to the latter than to the former ; and granting that 
the evidences have not inherently in them a moral or spiritual efficacy, 
fitted to produce a direct moral or spiritual impression, may we not, 
in sober seriousness, thus make our appeal on their behalf? — If we 
have found, beyond all debate, that these are expressly designed by God, 
and are in their very nature peculiarly adapted to create a salutary im- 
pression of the Divine authority of Scripture — if we have found such im- 
pression, when actually produced, eminently calculated to awaken lively 
reflection — to excite and stimulate a spirit of inquiry — to call forth the 
most intense and determined scrutiny — to rouse and concentrate man's 
most active energies in seriously examining into the contents of that 
Revelation which unfolds the occasion, origin, and completion of the 
scheme of redemption ; or in candidly listening to the " glad tidings," when 
powerfully proclaimed by the living voice; — if we have found such 
serious examination, and such candid hearing, by bringing the soul into 
immediate juxtaposition with the converting " Word of Life," ultimately issue, 
through God's blessing, in saving evangelical conversion : — if we have 
found all this, not as the result of theory, but of living actual experience, 
how dare we, without impeaching the Divine wisdom, and belying the 
testimony of sense, accede to the anti-Christian dogma, of late so strangely 
propounded,* that the external evidences have done, and can do, little or nothing, 

* It is humiliating to think that any one who has been solemnly set apart for the ministry 
and defence of the Gospel, should be so left to himself, as to write in such disparaging terms 
of the Christian evidences— yea, and to indulge in the offensive style of an ill-suppressed 
sneer respecting them, as " our boasted evidences "—just as if they were mere unwarranted 
human devices, manipulated in the intellectual laboratory of a Paley or a Chalmers. Our 
boasted evidences ! In what sense can they be so designated ? In none other than the blessed 
Gospel of our salvation can be styled, our boasted Gospel ! But away with a mode of expres- 

u u 



674 



even as a mean towards conversion ? How dare we assume, for the past, 
without running counter to the history of Providence and of Grace, that 
these evidences, Divinely ordained, have done little or nothing ? How 
dare we infer, for the future, without the most boundless presumption, 
that they will do little or nothing, even as a mean towards ultimate saving 
conversion ? 

II. From the preceding narrative, it distinctly appears that there are 
cases in which the greatest accumulation of evidence may fail in produc- 
ing a practical conviction either of the Being of a holy God, or of the Divine 
origin of Christianity. 

Some there were of the number of inquirers who, at last, freely ad- 
mitted the force of the evidence which proved the existence of a Great 
First Cause. But when pressed with something more specific, such as the 
decisiveness of the evidence in favour of his moral attributes, they pro- 
fessed to doubt. Probably the existence of a First Cause was, in their 
case, conceded, not so much in deference to the merit of testimony, as 
in order to fill up the cheerless vacuity in the soul, — to furnish some 
object to that religious instinct which no sophistry has ever wholly 
eradicated, — and to present a shield for the scorn and reproach of uni- 
versal man. These, by their conduct, proved that they would rather there 
had been no God at all. But if the existence of a First Cause must be 
allowed, they seemed resolved that it should be as vague, undefined, and 
non-interfering an abstraction as possible. 

In like manner, many who believed in a God of infinite perfections, pro- 
fessed to doubt or deny the conclusiveness of the Christian evidence. And 
what appeared more noticeable was, that the hostility of some became 
more potent and that they gradually shrunk back altogether, just in pro- 
portion as additional light streamed around the subject of inquiry. Again, 
many who believed in the Divine authority of the Bible professed to be 
dissatisfied with the legitimacy of any interpretation which might estab- 
lish that most obnoxious of all tenets to the natural man— the Divinity and 
incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ . 

In all this there was nothing new. In circumstances infinitely more advan- 
tageous the same phasis of character had been manifested. How many, 
who listened to the prophecies, and witnessed the miracles, and heard the 
discourses of our Saviour, remained indifferent, or unbelieving, or posi- 

sion which outrages all Christian feeling. The truth is, that in strict propriety of speech, nei- 
ther " the Gospel " nor " the evidences " of the Gospel, can be called ours, as to their origin 
or design. Both become ours, by the special favour of God's grace. A particular manner 
of proclaiming or enforcing the Gospel message, may be ours ; and one may be more signally 
favoured than another, in the gift of preaching : but the Gospel preached is not ours— it is 
God's— God's own infinitely wise and gracious scheme of redeeming lost sinners. So, in the 
case of the evidences. The particular manner of representing these may be ours. As in 
preaching, so here. One man— a Paley or a Chalmers— may accomplish the end with a hap- 
pier effect than another ; but the evidences propounded are not ours— they are God's— God's 
own peculiarly chosen and appointed attestations of a Divine commission. So that, instead of 
" our boasted evidences," we should be bound to substitute " God's boasted evidences "—and 
see whether we do not approximate the very verge of blasphemy ! 



675 



tively inimical ? The fact is, that in all these cases, and in all alike, there 
was something more, than mere simjrte ignorance to be removed. In all, and 
in all alike, worldly interest, pride, prejudice, and vicious propensi- 
ties, beclouded the intellect, hardened the heart, carnalized the affections, 
and seared the conscience to such an extent, that the natural tendencies of 
evidence, and the legitimate influences of truth, were wholly arrested or 
paralysed into utter impotency. Never were the words of Atterbury more 
truly verified :_« It is not," says he, " for want of strength that the ordi- 
nary ways of proof are rejected, but for want of sincerity in the minds of 
those to whom they are proposed. And the same want of sincerity, the 
same aversion from goodness, will be equally a reason for rejecting any 
proof whatever. To those who are resolved not to be convinced, all mo- 
tives, all arguments are equal. He that shuts his eyes against a small 
glimmering, on purpose to avoid the sight of somewhat that displeases him, 
would, for the same reason, shut them against the sun.'' 

In fine, the great objection to Christianity and to the God of Christianity 
is their holiness. The great objector is sin — sin, in one or other of its hy- 
dra-headed forms. Those who obstinately persist in wishing that the religion 
of the Bible were not true, or, that the Jehovah of the Bible had no exist- 
ence, will not perceive the force of any amount of evidence adduced in 
proof of the reality of either. Only let us convince the most debased scep- 
tic of sin in the Scriptural sense ; and, when made to cry out of the depths for 
deliverance, only let his soul be brought in contact with the Gospel catho- 
licon, by which the guilt of transgression is expiated, and the nature of man 
so transformed as to delight in the beauties of holiness, and we shall be 
saved the trouble of answering the objections, or of supplying arguments 
to prove the being of a holy God, or the Divine origin of a holy religion. 

The great objection to the Divine Author and Finisher of our faith is his 
ineffable humility. The great objector is sin— sin, chiefly in the form of 
its eldest or first-born, pride. Only let the haughtiest Rationalist be con- 
vinced of sin in the Scriptural sense ; and, when smarting under the scor- 
pion-sting of an upbraiding conscience, only let the eye of faith be turned 
to Immanuel's cross, where Infinite Reason itself is seen to be glorified in 
the wondrous expedient whereby God can be just and yet the Justifier of 
the ungodly,— and we shall be saved the trouble of satisfying his scruples, 
or applying the canons of an elaborate criticism to demonstrate our blessed 
Lord's Divinity. He whose soul has been truly awakened to a sense of the 
infinite malignity, guilt, and danger of sin, would no more dream of cleaving 
to the god of Deism or the saviour of Sociuianism, in preference to the Al- 
mighty Redeemer of catholic Christianity, — no more than the drowning man 
would, of clinging to the frailest broken reed, in preference to the life-boat 
which had already saved its thousands, and could save thousands more, from 
a watery grave. 

It is delightful to be assured that there is an inexpugnable magazine of 
evidence always at our command,— evidence whose ample sufficiency must 
leave all men without excuse, and convict them of folly and criminality in 
their continued unbelief. But it were well for the propagator of Christianity, 



676 



vhenev-er he can possibly obtain a hearing, whether in the case of an indi- 
vidual or an audience, to overleap the rampant barrier assailable by the 
artillery of evidence altogether ; and at once attack, by broad and down- 
right statements of Gospel truth, the citadel of sin in the heart. If he suc- 
ceed in carrying that stronghold, and effect the lodgment of an awakening 
conviction of " sin, and righteousness, and judgment then he may return 
and find the outworks of unbelief surrendered or fallen without the play of 
a single weapon from the armoury of evidence. 

III. From the preceding narrative we may learn the inefficiency of ac- 
knowledged evidence in producing correspondent changes in the outward 
life and conduct. 

If, on the ground of evidence, which could not be gainsayed, many pro- 
fessed to believe in the being of a god, boundless in power, wisdom, and 
goodness, what ought to be the natural practical effect of such belief ? 
Ought it not to be an endeavour to render to Him the homage of devout 
adoration, and loyal conformity to His infinitely wise and beneficent char- 
acter ? Yet, among the entire class of Deists, we knew not one on whom 
his evidential faith seemed to exert any practical influence. In fact, they 
perfectly realized Fuller's description of learned unbelievers in the West, 

" They were Deists in theory, Pagans in incHnation, and Atheists in 

practice." As regards Theism,— the only consistent Theists in the world 
are the followers of Jesus. 

Again, if on the ground of evidence that could not be gainsayed, many 
professed to believe in the Divine authority of the Bible, ought they not to 
submit with child-like docility to the expressly revealed will of the Great 
Creator ? And yet, with the profession of an evidential faith in Christianity 
on their lips, they laboured to explain away every thing which was repugnant 
to their antecedent wishes. They laboured to reduce the magnificence of 
the Divine economy within the narrow span of their little conception ; in- 
stead of scaling the heavens by the ladder of Revelation, and dilating their 
souls by habitual converse with infinite magnitudes. Instead of those de- 
votions of gratitude and love,— the full affluence of which constitutes the 
riches of a heavenly inheritance, and the refreshment of an everlasting 
salvation,— they practically lived without a temple,— without an altar,— 
without any devout adoration, or grateful offering of prayer or praise. 

IV. From the preceding narrative we may learn the utter powerlessness 
of all mere evidence, and all mere knowledge, in operating that internal 
change which is implied in conversion, or the vital experimental reception 
of the Gospel message. 

Some there were who not only believed in the being of an all-perfect God, 
and the celestial origin of the Christian Revelation ; but who intellec- 
tually understood and professed to embrace those views of Divine truth 
which the holy Catholic Church has upheld in every age. And yet, these 
were individuals who gave no manifestation of the influence of real per- 
sonal religion. These were scientific Christians; in the same way as they 



677 



were scientific geographers or scientific astronomers. They could do in 
reference to Christianity what they could in reference to human science. 
They could demonstrate the truth of its evidence ; they could follow the 
reasonings of Leslie, or Paley, or Chalmers, and prove the validity of their 
conclusions ; they could rehearse systematically the contents of the Bible, 
and point out the reciprocal bearings of its different parts ; they could 
solve difficulties, and remove objections. In a word, Christianity, in its 
evidences and contents, they knew theoretically as a science. But Chris- 
tianity is more than a science : It is a healing and remedial process :— and 
as such it was not known, because its vivifying and transforming power 
was not experienced. What do facts like these prove ? Surely that 
something more than mere evidence or mere knowledge is necessary to a saving 
efficacious reception of the Gospel,— as the divinely appointed method of 
justifying and sanctifying the guilty and unclean. And what is that in- 
dispensable something? In the face of those charges of fanaticism of 
which the world is so lavishly prodigal, we solemnly declare our convic- 
tion, that that without which neither evidence, nor even the preach- 
ing of the word can savingly profit, is the influence of God's Holy Spirit. 
But the Holy Spirit ordinarily works through the instrumentality of 
means. Wilfully to neglect these, were wilfully to dispense with the 
proffered blessing. To rest satisfied with the use of these, were to sink 
into the dotage of preferring the means as more excellent than the end ; 
as if the sinner were to reckon the task of excavating rubbish a nobler 
inheritance than the actual possession of the golden treasures. Oh let us, 
in the use of all our means, look upward to the Holy Spirit, whose Divine 
irradiations alone can illumine our darkness, whose Divine inspiration 
alone can breath into our deadness the breath of new life, whose Divine 
touch alone can enkindle our coldness into a flame, can sanctify all our 
knowledge,— rendering it introductive of faith and love, and all those spi- 
ritual graces which bud and blossom in time, and ripen into fruit of glory 
through eternity. 

V. From the preceding narrative, we may distinctly learn the natural 
order and relative connection of all the different branches of evidence. 

The historical and miraculous evidence comes first in argumentative 
order. It has been called external ; because, as has been remarked, it is 
external to the Gospel message itself. It admits of being primarily ex- 
amined altogether apart from the system of doctrines which it accredits. 
To it, therefore, we appeal in the case of unbelievers, who neither know 
nor care any thing about the subject-matter of the Bible ; and who boldly 
demand of us to prove to them that it contains a Divine revelation. 
Proceeding on principles to which they themselves give their assent, Ave 
may extort from every candid mind the conviction that God has, in very 
deed, revealed Himself to man. 

This conviction may again be corroborated by multifarious evidence 
which has been termed internal, inasmuch as it implies a measure of acquaint- 
ance more or less enlarged with the style, structure, and contents of the 



678 



volume of Revelation. Thus, the language, style, and manner of writing, 
used in the books of the Old and New Testaments, may be admitted as 
proof of their genuineness ; and the very great number of particular cir- 
cumstances of time, and place, and persons, together with the correspond- 
ences between Scripture statements and the natural and civil history of 
the East, become arguments in favour of both their genuineness and authen- 
ticity. Again, the system of moral government which the Bible exhibits ; 
the unity of the design and general harmony of all its varied contents ; the 
sublime and majestic simplicity of its diction ; the unrivalled excellence 
of its morality ; the intuitive knowledge which it displays of the most 
hidden secrets of the human heart ; the unparalleled moral character of 
the founder of Christianity ; the perfect coincidence of the scheme of re- 
demption with the known attributes of God, and the actual condition of 
man : — These and many other kindred topics have often been largely 
shown to furnish the strongest indications of the Divine origin and autho- 
rity of the volume that is characterised by them. 

Now, what is the legitimate effect of all these different branches of evi- 
dence ? It is to produce an overwhelming impression of the Divine au- 
thority of the Bible, and an irrepressible desire to master its contents. 
Accordingly, by the force and amount of all this rational evidence, whether 
external or internal, many were led to give earnest heed to the reading 
and hearing of the Word of God. Still, for some time, there was no such 
intimate contact of the mind and the heart of any one, as to leave a gra- 
cious impression. At length, however, — to adopt and accommodate the 
noble language of Baxter, — in the hearing and reading of the Bible, the 
Spirit of God was graciously pleased so to concur in the case of a few, as 
that the will itself seemed to be touched with "agustand savour of the good- 
ness contained in the doctrine, and at the same time the understand- 
ing, with an internal irradiation which bred such a certain apprehension of 
the verity of it, as nature gives men of natural principles." Now, this in- 
ternal knowledge, arising from the felt suitableness of " the truth and 
goodness of the Gospel to their now quickened, illuminated, and sanctified 
souls," — was only another name for the a experimental evidence " of the 
truth of Christianity. It was the result of that self-witnessing, self-evi- 
dencing light which, by the special operation of God's Spirit is, as it were, 
struck out of the Word itself ; and made to lighten on the soul in a flash of 
conviction so vivid as almost to extinguish the tiny lustre of all reason- 
ings from external evidence. And thus was realized, in its significancy, 
the meaning of the beloved disciple, when he says, " He that believeth on 
the Son of God, hath the witness in himself." 

It hence appears, how perfectly the different kinds of evidence har- 
monize in their tendency and design. Still they are so essentially distinct 
in character, that they may exist either united or apart. When they do 
happily coexist in the same individual mind, the man of God may be said 
to be perfect, — thoroughly furnished in all the evidences of his faith ; and 
able to give every one a reason for the hope that is in him. When they do 
exist apart, it is of vastly more importance that a man should possess the 



679 

« experimental," than either the external or internal, or both together 
Both the latter are invaluable, when viewed as means divinely ordained 
or providentially sanctioned towards ultimate conversion ; but they do not 
necessarily lead to, far less, necessarily imply, conversion. The former, or ex- 
perimental, cannot, in strict propriety of language, be understood,— that is 
m reference to a particular individual cannot be said to exist at all -un- 
less he possesses that spiritual light and discernment which imply^, that 
is « born again," and is a new creature in Christ Jesus. 

Suppose a Jew situate in the remotest extremity of Palestine. He 
has heard of the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem ; but having never ac- 
companied his brethren to share in the celebration of any of the anniver- 
sary solemnities conducted with such pomp and splendour in that sacred 
edifice, he chooses to shield his negligence by sceptically pretending to 
doubt or deny its Divine origin and design. Overborne at length by the 
mass of historic testimony, and the reports of credible eye-witnesses, he is 
driven from a scepticism which could no longer coexist with a belief in his 
mental sanity. He now feels himself constrained, in consistency with his 
acknowledged change of sentiment, to take a journey to Jerusalem. He 
reaches the precincts of the temple. How has he been brought thither ? 
It is by the force of external evidence. 

He now surveys with his own eyes the gorgeous pile. Glorious with- 
out, he finds it aU glorious within,— enriched and embellished with an in- 
finite variety of the useful and the ornamental,— and yet every variety 
contributing to compose the one great and harmonious whole. When 
he well notes with what inimitable skill aU the materials have been se- 
lected and combined ; aU the parts proportioned and adapted to their 
alleged uses ; all the appurtenances regulated and conformed to their 
professed design, the uses and the design being worthy of infinite purity 
and infinite love ;_and when he finds all, and all alike, both means and 
end, more than corresponding with his most dilated conceptions of the 
majesty and the goodness of the God of Israel,— how can he help exclaim- 
ing, surely this is none other than the House of God ! Whence this con- 
fession ? It is from the force of internal evidence. 

Once more, while our traveller is gazing in rapt admiration and delight 
at the venerable and hallowed forms around him, the Shekinah or cloud 
of glory,— the dazzling and over-awing symbol of Jehovah's immediate 
presence— suddenly descends and fills the temple. Does he now require 
any process of historic proof, any testimony of eye-witnesses, any com- 
parison of discovered coincidence between the Divine character and the 
temple rites and furniture, to assure his own mind that God is peculiarly- 
present there ? No. He at once exclaims, Heretofore I have heard by 
the hearing of the ear, and have concluded from the apprehensions of my 
understanding ; but now mine eyes have seen,— they have seen the glory 
of the King in his holy sanctuary ! Whence these emphatic words ? They 
are the spontaneous utterance of experimental evidence. 

In all this, there is a beautifully connected series of evidences— each 
preceding step of which, naturally leading to that which follows. Still the 



680 



order of the series might be reversed. Had our Jewish sceptic, without 
any reference to external or internal testimony, been at once transported 
to the tabernacles of Zion, at the very hour when Jehovah shone forth 
from between the cherubims, who can doubt that the fullest impression 
of His sacred presence, and the inviolable sanctity of His temple, would 
be produced by such sensible manifestation of His transcendent glory ? 
In like manner, in the evidences of Christianity there is a beautifully 
connected series. Still, if, in the absence of external and internal proofs, 
the mind of the greatest infidel could be at once introduced into the temple 
of truth, as delineated in the Bible ; and were the Holy Spirit to shine 
forth through the medium of the "Word, from the height and eminence of 
His royal pavilion, who can doubt that the soul would be instantly pene- 
trated with a sense of the presence of Divinity in His holy oracle, and 
receive the full impression of that divine knowledge which maketh men 
wise unto salvation ? 

The whole of this subject cannot be better concluded, than by a quota- 
tion from an eminent living Non-conformist divine (Dr Morison, of Lon- 
don.) Referring to the case of one who, though a total stranger to the 
question of evidence in general ; and, in the absence of all acute and spe- 
culative knowledge, believes in Christ, as freely presented in the Gospel, 
he proceeds to remark, that the evidence which such an individual will attain 
of the troth of Christianity, will be very distinct from every other species 
of evidence. u Other branches of evidence have their existence irrespec- 
tive of a recipient ; but this depends on the very act of reception, and 
previous to that important act, can have no existence. Other branches 
of evidence are so many arguments to show the wisdom of embracing, 
and the folly of rejecting, the Christian faith. But this is that last, that 
crowning evidence, which, in the order of nature, succeeds all other evi- 
dences ; which is not so much an argument for the reception of the Gos- 
pel, as a declaration that it has been received ; that an experiment has 
been made, and that Christianity is all that to the divine character, and 
all that with respect to the condition, character, and happiness of man, 
which it professes to be. When the Gospel thus comes into actual con- 
tact with the soul of man, when it is received in the spirit of love, it 
shines into the heart in the full blaze of its own evidence ; and gives forth, 
on the convictions of the mind, the most satisfying proof, that its origin 
is of God. Thus it is, that the faith of the genuine Christian does not 
rest exclusively, or even mainly, on the general evidences of the Gospel, 
however striking : but, on the power of God, confirming its genuineness, 
by its mighty workings in his own heart. The conviction which he thus 
reaches, is less the result of speculation than of feeling," (or rather conscious- 
ness ;) ■ for as no reasonings in the world could be so powerful to convince 
him of the existence of the sun, as his own perceptions of the light and 
heat of that glorious luminary, so no argument in defence of the Gospel 
can be so vivid or permanent in its impression, as the consciousness of 
God's own manifestation to the soul ;— a manifestation which never fails 



681 



to impress the conviction, that the Gospel is alone the power of God, and 
the wisdom of God, to every one that believeth." 

VI. From the preceding narrative, we may learn the totally different 
aspect under which the Bible appears to the same mind, when seen mere- 
ly by the light of the natural understanding, and when seen in the light 
of an understanding illuminated by the Spirit of God. 

No subject called forth more frequent expressions of grateful surprise 
from some of those who, through grace, had been brought to believe 
than this. Though many difficulties had been solved, and many objections 
had been removed by the application of sound knowledge and exegetic 
criticism, yet up to the period of their conversion, much, very much, of 
the Bible appeared dark, unmeaning, or involved in inextricable confusion. 
But after their hearts became savingly impressed, the very passages to 
which some of these epithets had been most lavishly applied, appeared 
most luminous, and fraught with divine sense and harmony. So literally 
was the apostolic saying verified, — " that the natural man receiveth not 
the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 

To the men of the world, such language sounds little better than mys- 
tical jargon. But it expresses a simple literal fact. Let an individual, 
when a youthful tyro, and afterwards when he has scaled the heights of 
science, survey a museum of natural history. Will not the eye of the 
philosopher read an almost infinite variety of meanings in every object ; 
meanings that were wholly undiscerned by the eye of the child ? And 
yet, in both cases, is not the outward natural light the same ? Is not the 
image of all things on the optical retina the same too ? True ; but in the 
latter case, there is now superadded the interior light of cultivated reason 
and enlarged knowledge ; and this makes all the difference. For it is in 
the blaze of the superadded light that the visual organ reveals so many 
new wonders to the same spectator-mind. 

In like manner, in the volume of revelation, the same individual may 
be brought, even suddenly, to perceive an inexhaustible variety of mean- 
ing, previously undiscerned. Yet in both cases, the same form of words 
may be present to the outward eye ; the same amount of natural know- 
ledge stored up in the memory ; and the same general outlines of Biblical 
statement traced, so to speak, on the tablet of the understanding. Whence 
the difference ? It is the communicated illumination of the Spirit of 
God which manifests to the renewed soul so many new and precious 
discoveries. Without this divine light, the spiritual universe delineated 
in the Bible, can no more emit distinct intimations of its constitution, 
order, and harmony, to the mind of the greatest philosopher that ever 
lived, than the material universe can emit distinct intimations of its con- 
stituted order and harmony to the vision of the most ignorant child. With- 
out this divine light, therefore, the man who may be a living, moving, Cy- 
clopaedia of natural knowledge, is no more qualified to dictate in spiritual 
things to the most illiterate saint, than the latter is enabled to prescribe 

X X 



682 



to him in matters of recondite science. Without this divine light, he 
who would pretend to criticise and annihilate the redemptive scheme of 
Revelation, must commit an act of as egregious folly in the sight of all 
holy intelligences, as must the man, in the eye of the scientific world, 
who would pretend to examine and demolish the Newtonian system of 
astronomy, without ever having solved one geometric problem, or perform- 
ed one experiment on the physical properties of matter. Or, to vary our 
illustration. — To an unspiritualised mind, numberless passages in the 
Bible appear like natural objects in the dark ; and to a mind illuminated 
by divine grace, like the same objects in the light of day. 

VII. From this narrative, we may derive fresh illustration of the uni- 
versal identity of the soul of man ; and the universal adaptation of the 
Gospel remedy. 

Under the separate and combined influences of climate, cultivation, 
government, and a thousand contingencies, the body of man may have 
assumed forms, apparently so dissimilar, as to furnish some plausible pre- 
text for the wild and unsubstantial reveries of those who have feigned, 
that different original stocks have been planted on different and distant 
shores ; and the mind of man, subjected to influences not less varied, 
may have exhibited aspects alike calculated to perplex, though not con- 
found the sober inquirer after truth. But however complex the evidences 
that have been accumulated in proof of the physical identity of man in 
all regions of the globe, the power of speedily and totally assimilating 
the bodily frame in external appearance, has been found no where to 
exist. Not so in the world of spirit. Here the proof of universal identi- 
ty is inseparable from the power which can assimilate all minds ; — and that 
power is Christianity, accompanied by the quickening energy of diviue 
grace. What can be more dissimilar than the mind of a blinded Hindu 
idolater or atheist, and the mind of an enlightened British Christian ? — 
the former swoln with errors the most monstrous or reduced many de- 
grees below the zero of ordinary unbelief ; the latter replenished with the 
most ennobling truths ? And yet have we not seen the former brought,, 
by the medicative power of Christianity, unto a state of perfect homo- 
geneousness with the latter,— and that, too, in all the most secret springs 
and depths of thought, and in all the loftiest soarings of faith ? 

If farther evidence be wanted on this subject, it may be found in the 
following extract,— being the concluding of a very long letter received from 
one of our converts, since my return to this country. It was written up- 
wards of two years subsequent to his baptism,— and thus proves that his 
spirit remained unchanged. It is not a translation from the vernacular 
dialect of Bengal ; the writer had learned English, and here are the very 
words as they flowed direct from his own pen. It is dated from Futteh- 
pore, beyond Allahabad, where he obtained the appointment of head 
master of a Christian English school. The conclusion is verbatim as fol- 
lows : — 

« In conclusion, my dear Sir, I will try to acquaint you with the present 



683 



state of my mind. After I was separated from you in July 1833, 1 was 
almost thrown alone into the world. Often I was tempted to be hope- 
less, and felt the need of your society. When I feel my lonesomeness, 
or want of a friend to open my heart to, I go to Him, who is ever kind 
to me, and disclose my secrets. He is the only searcher of all those 
that are lost. He is the only friend of all the broken-hearted. He is 
the true leader, who leads out of the world and temptation, particu- 
larly to the new and inexperienced. Jesus is sweet unto all those that 
call upon him in faith. Did He not promise that He shall be with me 
even unto the end of the world — then what fear ? * Let your loins be 
girded about, and your lights burning ? ' Such are my expressions in the 
hour of temptation. Oh what a comfort to have Christ always, and 
have fellowship with Him ! Is it not a great blessing to have Christ, a 
friend, a companion, and a conductor in all things. Then let these lines 
be my continual expression : — 

" If on my face, for thy dear name, 

Shame and reproaches be ; 
All hail reproach, and welcome shame, 

If thou remember me." 

" Oh what a great mistake of them that are still wandering, not know- 
ing where to harbour at 1 Did not our Lord pronounce peace on all 
those that are his ? ' Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you : Let not your heart be 
troubled neither let it be afraid.' Is this peace pronounced not for all ? 
I say it is for all, whoever he may be ; whatever nation or country he 
belongeth to ; so I am sure His peace resteth on me so long as I have 
sufficient faith, even unto the end of my life. 

" My dear Sir, I kept you longer than I should have done, but with a 
few more lines I will conclude. Although we are separated by sight, 
still our hearts are combined in the Lord. As for my part, I find that 
the hearts, which are once in the fellowship of Jesus, cannot on any 
account be separated ; neither by time nor by distance. We are merely 
separated by earthly boundaries ; but our Christian love grows stronger 
and stronger as the day of salvation approaches. Only a few thousand 
miles are between you and me ; but I have you always in my heart, and 
make mention of you in my prayers ; you are scarcely gone out of my 
sight. But oh remember me sometimes in your prayers. Pray not only 
for my sinful soul, that I may be kept faithful unto death, but also, 
and especially, for the souls of the poor heathens around me, that they 
may soon be freed from the chain of Satan, and be blessed in the name 
of Jesus. Whether I live or die, let Christ be glorified by the in- 
gathering of sinners to Him. I have many more trials and temptations 
yet to meet ; but oh may I cut short all of them through Him who is 
ever gracious to me. Those days are gone by, when we used to converse 
on religious topics ; more especially on Christ's condescension to save poor 
sinners. But we have a sure hope, that they will be renewed in a bet- 



684 



ter place, and at a better time ; when we come to dwell in the mansions 
of our Heavenly Father. Oh may we soon come to that place, and greet 
each other with a brotherly embrace,— singing praises to the Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.— Yours affectionately, 

" GoPEE NAUTH NuNDY." 

These lines, in their touching simplicity, require no comment. It sure- 
ly is not possible for any experienced Christian to peruse them, without 
being sensible that he is holding converse with a mind, not only generically, 
but specifically the same as his own —that he is in union and communion 
with a perfectly congenial spirit,— a spirit new-moulded and fashioned after 
the similitude of Christ— a spirit, whose heavenward breathings would, 
with talismanic effect mark out its possessor from amidst the countless 
throng of his turbaned countrymen, as belonging to the spiritual confe- 
deracy and brotherhood of the faithful. 

We have already heard of the triumphs of the Cross in every quarter 
of the globe. And here is an additional voice from the very centre of 
Satan's dominions in the Eastern World,— announcing in accents that can- 
not be misunderstood, what Christianity can do for a poor idolater, who 
once supremely delighted in the brutal and bloody worship of Durga 
and Kali(,— proclaiming with an authority which cannot be resisted, 
that the Gospel is verily the power of God, and the wisdom of God, unto 
salvation, to every one that believeth. Truly, Christianity is thus proved 
to be an ever germinant seed of undecaying vigour ; and, in its transform- 
ing influences, wholly independent of earthly change. It is the same in 
the temperate as in the torrid zone : the same in the torrid as in the frigid. 
It is not scorched by heat, nor benumbed by cold. Age does not diminish 
the freshness of its bloom : soil does not affect its nature : climate does 
not modify its peculiar properties. Amid the burning sands of Africa : 
amid the frost-bound solitudes of Greenland : amid the wildernesses of 
America : amid the fertile plains of India :— it still shoots up and flour- 
ishes, — the same plant of renown, — the same vine of the Lord's planting. 
And we live in the assured hope, that " all kindreds, and tongues, and 
peoples, and nations," will one day rend the heavens with songs of praise, 
when privileged to take shelter under its all-covering shade, and draw 
refreshing nourishment from its perennial fruits. — Amen ; yea, and 
Amen. 



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